


Hypostheses Concerning Kyber and its Sentience

by NebulousMistress



Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [8]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Blood and Gore, Contains Science, Elements of an Eldritch Force, Existential Angst, Force-Sensitive Original Character(s), Gen, Mad Science Corps, Misuse of Sith Sorcery, Monster Armitage Hux, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Tourism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25151107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: Dr. Bescom asked for seismic events and he got comets. What are the scientists asking for this time?
Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698706
Comments: 29
Kudos: 41





	1. The Proposal

**Author's Note:**

> Hypotheses: Ilum is alive. Ilum can be controlled. Ilum can control people in return.
> 
> Corollary: The Jedi Order preferred their padawans to acquire their kyber crystals from Ilum in order to maintain cohesion within the Order.
> 
> Questions to test: Is each planet that produces kyber its own entity? If so can this be determined chemically? Mathematically?

Dr. Bescom, Dr. Otero, and Dr. Pietre all sat in a conference room on the surface of Ilum. The walls showed some superficial cracking where earthquakes had shifted the building. A pane of transparasteel separating the room from the hallway was bisected by a crack that traced from one corner to the opposite edge, a sheet of clingfilm on each side holding the pane in place until the pane could be replaced. A counter with a sink stood along one wall, a caf maker next to the sink. The stained pot was half filled with burnt caf. Next to the caf maker stood an open tin filled with pot-sized packets of ground caf and a half empty bottle of powdered caf creamer.

All three of them nursed mugs of caf, none of them on their first. Dr. Bescom slowly opened and closed his droid hand, massaging the connection points up in his forearm. Dr. Otero rubbed at the headache in his temples. Dr. Pietre laid back in her chair to stare at the ceiling and the dull black-purple light reflected from the several dozen kilos worth of kyber crystals strewn over the entire table. They pulsed and glowed and rippled in color, all of them taking their cue from Dr. Bescom’s coat. Or were they? She wondered if the kyber were instead influencing Dr. Bescom, Ilum itself causing his emotions.

This wasn’t a closed system, the equations of kyber power transference didn’t require a specific arrow of time.

And that was the problem.

“Hypothesis,” Dr. Otero mused. “Every kyber crystal is alive with a will of its own.”

“The equations of power transference support this,” Dr. Pietre allowed.

“It’s a rock,” Dr. Bescom protested.

“If kyber does have a will of its own, can you be trusted?” Dr. Otero asked. He gestured to Dr. Bescom’s coat. “Dr. Pietre was clear, the equations of power transference work both ways. You’re always around it, your labcoat is stained with it, you carry pieces in your pockets. Can we be sure Ilum’s kyber isn’t using you as a mouthpiece to throw us off its secrets?”

Dr. Bescom looked offended. Then he shuddered and his expression turned to something more contemplative. “How would we know?” he asked.

“I’ve heard rumors of silicon-based life in the Jedi archives,” Dr. Otero revealed. “Can we be sure kyber isn’t that?”

“How can we test it?” Dr. Bescom pulled several kyber rocks to himself, placing them in his lap and around him on the conference table. He hugged a particularly large one to his chest. They began to glow pale purple-green, the colors fading to white with distance.

“We could use you as a conduit,” Dr. Pietre snorted.

“Could we not?”

“I’m not sure that would be enough,” Dr. Otero mused. “We’ve all posited Ilum is one gigantic crystal, that pieces broken off of Ilum’s core remain connected to Ilum in the Force. It kept the Jedi connected to each other. But that implies the entire Jedi Order couldn’t control it, it controlled them. Worse, that means we only have one sample here.” He gestured to the table and its dozens of kyber crystals. “Every crystal on this planet. Every crystal in a Star Destroyer. Every crystal the Jedi ever used. They’re all from Ilum. They're all one sample from one entity.”

“Can we know that for sure?” Dr. Pietre asked. Then she shook her head while her hand reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, sorry, ignore that, I know it’s a stupid question. We know nothing for sure.”

“No, but we can test it,” Dr. Otero allowed. “We need kyber from other sources, other planetary entities. We need to analyze it chemically, physically, and psychically. Ideally we would analyze it in the Force as well but we don’t have access to sufficiently knowledgeable Force-sensitives.”

“We don’t have access to kyber from other sources,” Dr. Bescom lamented. “Do we?”

“We can get it,” Dr. Pietre said.

“How?”

Dr. Pietre laughed at Dr. Bescom’s question, as though he hadn’t convinced the project head to slam multiple comets into Ilum’s surface through this very method. “We ask.”

“I should ask for something,” Dr. Otero mused. 

“You should,” Dr. Pietre agreed.

“So, hypothesis, Ilum is one single living entity,” Dr. Otero said. “Test it by acquiring kyber from other sources to try and find any difference between Ilum’s kyber and non-native samples. Compare it to multiple test samples taken from Ilum. Attempt to determine if there’s a difference.”

“If there is, if Ilum is only one single entity, if Ilum is alive, then there’s a possibility we could alter the bulk of the planet’s crystal into accepting instructions without having to physically touch the core.”

Dr. Otero reached for his mug of caf only to find it empty. He got up and poured himself a fresh cup before taking a sip, scowling, and dumping creamer powder into his mug. “What’s our time frame?” he asked. “I assume we have one.”

“We’ll need to know how close to the core we need to be before the mantle crater resolidifies,” Dr. Bescom warned. “The engineers are sinking an exploratory tungsten carbide alloy structure into the mantle crater as we speak. We should have an idea before the end of the year.”

Dr. Otero spat caf across the conference table and its kyber. “Wait, one year?! Can we have a working theory in only one year?”

“We’ll have to,” Dr. Pietre allowed. “But that means we need to ask as soon as possible.”

“Today,” Dr. Bescom agreed.

*****

Captain Armitage Hux sat in his quarters on the _Locutor_. Like any junior officer, he barely had any. He had one room to contain his bed, his meager belongings, his own armor, his uniforms, his datapads, and his most precious possessions. A closet smaller than he was wide. A tiny refresher unit with a sonic shower barely large enough to turn around in. But it was private and that was what he needed right now.

He sat cross-legged upon his bed, the only seating in his entire quarters. His datapads were strewn about him, a few vague messages flashing urgent on their screens. A formal request from the Ilum scientists, unopened. An automatic flight plan logged for a shuttle from Ilum to the _Locutor_ . A request from security concerning scientists on the _Locutor_ , also unopened. They were unimportant compared to the item in his hands.

The Supreme Leader called it a ‘holocron’.

He remembered the day he and his Hounds brought it back. Landing on the _Kraken_ with Ren at his side, the two of them walking in silence to the Supreme Leader’s throne room in the great nautilus shell.

He remembered the Supreme Leader’s shock at the sight of him. Surely he should have expected three weeks in the wilderness would strip him of any civilized veneer. Wasn’t that **why** the Supreme Leader had granted him his augments? Wasn’t that why the Supreme Leader saw fit to strip him of his human half?

He’d explained what they’d found on Praxis, leaving no details behind. He’d felt the Supreme Leader’s touches in his mind, probing for details that he freely gave. He’d seen flashes of images in his mind as he spoke: the spiders and the statues, infinite reflections of himself beckoning as they all consumed each other, the great hounds that ran with him in dreams, purring himself hoarse as RX-3081 screamed, letters of Cheunh poetry climbing his arms and filling his mind with an eerie calm...

“Give it to me,” Snoke had said.

“My Lord?”

“Give it to me.” Snoke held out his hand and Hux knew then what he meant. He’d felt the growl rise unbidden in his throat, rumbling in warning. One word ran through his mind in frantic circles like a hound chasing its own tail: _unworthy_.

Hux had screamed, thrashing and snarling and fighting with every fiber of his being as Snoke absently, effortlessly held him up with the Force and instructed Ren to bring him the temple’s treasure.

But for all his protesting, for all that Snoke and Ren did while he hung helpless in the air by his own throat, for all he howled and screamed and acted the mindless hound the temple would have had him become, nothing happened. Snoke derided him for bringing back a holocron that couldn’t be accessed. He must have ruined it somehow with his fumbling attempts to resist the temple’s lure. Now look at him!

Hux hadn’t understood what Snoke said at the time. He was too busy fighting, his vision gone red with rage and with the swirling maddening opalescence of the Supreme Leader’s precious nautilus shell. All he knew for sure was he dropped to the floor and Ren thrust the holocron into his hands. He’d curled around it protectively, purring over his prize.

“Keep it for all that it matters,” Snoke had said with a dismissive gesture. He’d kept purring over it even as the Praetorian Guard dragged him away with Ren walking silently behind.

He had kept it. Now Hux sat cross-legged on his bed stroking the sides of the crystalline pyramid. He couldn’t open it. According to the Supreme Leader nobody could open it.

It didn’t matter. What mattered was it was safe. Hux drew his fingers along the edges and planes of the crystalline pyramid, feeling carven lines drawing patterns that he couldn’t see along the surface of the crystal.

Then a noise drew him from his thoughts. Datapads flashed at him and he tapped each message open, trying to pull himself back to the present by throwing himself back into his work.

The noise again. It took a moment for him to realize it was the chime on his door.

Oh.

Hux stood up, straightened his uniform, and opened his door.

“Finally!” Dr. Bescom started to press his way through the door, stopping only when he realized there was barely enough room for one person to stand much less four. Still Dr. Pietre shoved her way in behind him. Dr. Otero instead waited in the hallway with their Stormtrooper escort, at least until he looked into the room and saw something incongruous.

“Is that a holocron?” Dr. Otero asked, pushing his way past the others.

Hux retreated to the bed, grabbed the holocron, and snarled.

“That’s a no,” Dr. Pietre said, surprisingly deadpanned considering how close she was to that bed.

“That is very much a holocron,” Dr. Otero protested, unabashed want creeping into his voice and the reddening of Dr. Bescom's coat.

Dr. Pietre and Dr. Bescom both took one of Dr. Otero’s arms and dragged him out of the room.

“Can we get a conference room?” Dr. Pietre asked the Stormtrooper. “Or a lab, if you have one.”

“Sim Room 23!” Hux shouted.

“Simulation Room 23,” the Stormtrooper agreed. “This way.”

Hux growled as the scientists left. How had they gotten on board?!

He glanced down at his datapads. Ah. Right. The urgent messages made more sense now. He carefully put the holocron in its box and slid it under the bed. Then he grabbed a datapad and left, code-locking the door behind him.

Simulation Room 23 was not entirely empty. FN-2304 and RX-3081 were using it for a large scale battle simulation, two fleets facing off over Coruscant. Neither fleet was historically accurate, the both of them using Imperial-style navies heavily laden with TIE Defenders as the red fleet fought the blue fleet for control of the planet.

The three scientists filed in as the Stormtrooper stayed outside. Dr. Otero and Dr. Bescom watched with detached interest until Dr. Pietre started calling out suggested moves to the two combatants.

Then a third fleet appeared. The green fleet of _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyers flooded in at speed and swept both fleets with brutal efficiency.

The simulation ended with Coruscant burning underneath their feet as Captain Hux walked in from the technician bay with a neural amplifier behind his ear.

“Now then,” Hux said. “What is it you needed to tell me?”

“We need something,” Dr. Pietre said.

Dr. Pietre presented their hypotheses, that Ilum was in fact alive. That the kyber crystals that spawned from Ilum were all appendages of that same single Force-sensitive living planet. That it may be possible to determine how closely connected Ilum remained to its wayward appendages if they were able to study kyber crystals from other sources, mined fresh from other planets entirely. 

Hux called up a map and the neural amplifier provided, turning the entire Simulation Room into a massive 3-dimensional map of the galaxy. Ilum glowed with a little red tag.

“Where else would one find kyber in the galaxy?” Hux asked.

Dr. Otero gave a list of candidate planets. Dantooine. Mestare. Malachor. Lothal. Christophsis. Jedha. Mid Rim and Outer Rim planets. Probability dictated there should be some source in the Core where early Jedi learned to harness the power of these crystals but such a source was likely tapped out by now, if not ruined by an ecumenopolis.

Each planet Dr. Otero mentioned glowed with a little reg tag. Tiny pale lines, hyperspace lanes, flared out from Ilum, tracing safe paths across the galaxy to each planet. These hyperspace lanes branched and converged and went dark and glowed and flared and died as Hux’s mind traced out how to get to each planet from Ilum in a way that avoided the major New Republic worlds.

“Malachor was destroyed during one of the Jedi Civil Wars millennia ago,” Dr. Otero explained. “Traces of the kyber core may still remain.” Still, the tag disappeared from Malachor and all lines leading to it faded.

“Lothal is underpopulated,” he continued. “However the crystals of Lothal are difficult to obtain and there are rumors of Force-sensitive animals that resisted the Empire during its occupation. If I remember correctly, the _Chimera_ disappeared over Lothal by the actions of those animals.” The lines leading to Lothal warbled before firming up.

“Jedha is a pilgrim planet decimated by early Death Star tests. The kyber mines should be easy to access.” The lines to Jedha brightened as more branched out from it, as though the map now used Jedha as a stopping point between travel points.

“Dantooine has its own crystal caves. In fact, I wrote my Master’s Thesis on the Dantooine caves and their rare yellow crystals. I can provide a copy of my research and directions to the caverns themselves.” A bright white line linked Jedha and Dantooine.

“Mestare is known for its unique crystals. They produce curved blades that legend says are capable of slicing through cortosis. Historically the crystal caves there were guarded by an insular group of Force-users who abandoned the official Jedi doctrine handed down from Coruscant. I would very much like to study the crystals that might cause such an offshoot group to split from the Jedi. Unfortunately, I do not know if that group remains active or if Lord Vader ever wiped them out.” A tentative line drew from Jedha and Dantooine to Mestare.

“I would not consider Christophsis for our purposes. Even before the Empire fell there have been groups of Force cultists trying to return kyber crystals to Christophsis regardless of the crystal’s origins. If those groups have continued we must consider the crystals at Christophsis tainted.” The lines to Christophsis faded and winked out.

Hux whined as he gazed at Lothal but the line between Jedha, Dantooine, and Mestare didn’t reach Lothal. But he wanted to go…

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He hadn’t noticed RX-3081 behind him. Hux was going to bite him for that look of fond amusement. He growled and RX-3081 backed away. He gazed back up at Lothal. The Empire had gone over that battle countless times, there was nothing left of the _Chimera_ or of Grand Admiral Thrawn. He’d disappeared, taking with him the TIE Defender program and any internal resistance to the Death Star’s construction.

Hux sighed. He growled at nothing as the line from Ilum to Lothal faded, faded, faded, and finally disappeared.

The galaxy shrank to the size of a more conventional map in the middle of Simulation Room 23. A route traced its way around the Outer Rim worlds, following lesser used lanes where the New Republic wouldn’t keep as much of a presence. That route hit Jedha, Dantooine, then Mestare before tracing back around to Ilum.

“I want one of these so bad,” Dr. Pietre murmured.

Hux began to purr. “It’s my design.”

“Give me one.” Dr. Pietre didn’t phrase it as a request, it was a command.

“In due time,” Hux purred. “I have to make another one first. This is still a prototype. It’s being expanded.”

It wasn’t a ‘no’. She could wait. She could wait because it wasn’t a ‘no’. She just had to remember it wasn’t a ‘no’. 

“We have a map, then,” Dr. Otero mused. “Should three samples be enough?”

“We should get as many samples as we can,” Dr. Bescom said. “Enough to prove beyond hypothesis that each kyper-producing world is its own unique entity.”

“From there we can estimate how much surface kyber we would need in order to influence Ilum’s core,” Dr. Pietre mused. “Whether we can simply collect it in a pile and… what?”

“I know the Empire used energy fields to influence their kyber into submitting to the machine,” Dr. Otero allowed. “The Jedi could also force kyber to bend to a sentient will by ‘bleeding’ the crystal, though only dark side practitioners used the ability. Perhaps we could seek to emulate the ability mechanically the way the Empire did? Or, the Supreme Leader is a Force-user, does he have disciples he could tap for power?”

“We’ll figure out what to do next after we determine how unique Ilum is,” Hux said. “I’ll bring this proposal to the Supreme Leader.” He glanced at RX-3081 and FN-2304 who both looked interested, as though they could sense the mission developing around them. “With any luck we’ll be back in here soon for a mission briefing.”

“Wait, you’re going to go on this mission yourself?” Dr. Bescom realized.

Hux only grinned, baring teeth as he purred.

*****

The communications chamber on the _Locutor_ was of the old Imperial style and Hux despised the fact that he was required to use it. The holograms of this chamber were blue, flickering, flat, featureless. It had no substance, no color contrast, no detail. It was difficult to focus on, like staring at a spider’s web without seeing the strands. If he had his way he would have the transmission rerouted to Simulation Room 23, where at least he could see the hologram he spoke to.

Instead General Pryde insisted on this. Of course he did.

The communications chamber was comfortably dark, his pupils wide and relaxed in the darkness. Bare black walls in the darkness should have allowed for a clearer picture of the Emperor on this end but they had no Emperor. The walls weren’t bare, either, Hux could see the multitude of emitters studded in the walls before the white transmission plate. Tiny guide lights burned unnecessarily bright, guiding him down to the transmission plate where he would stand or kneel or even prostrate himself before the Supreme Leader with his request.

There were no controls on this end. Control was automatic, the transmission plate activated from the _Kraken_ ’s end. If the Supreme Leader demanded it one might be made to kneel in place for hours to test the urgency of a pointless request. Hux knew it had happened before, his own father forced to kneel on such a transmission plate for half a day before the Supreme Leader deigned to answer only to turn Brendol’s demands down before they had been voiced.

Hux stood before it, the blank white circle quiet and dark. He went over his request in his own mind once again. 

‘The scientists require samples of kyber not of Ilum. We have determined three sources would be sufficient. Jedha, Dantooine, and Mestare are the targets drawn together by the scientist. I request the right to send my own Hounds to fetch--’

No.

‘I request permission to lead my Hounds on this chase--’

No, that wasn’t right either.

‘My Lord, please honor me with the right to lead my Hounds in this hunt.’

Maybe?

Hux took a deep breath and stepped forward, lowering himself to kneel on the transmission plate. He lowered his head in the dark, eyes falling closed as he waited for the _Kraken_ to accept his request and open the channel.

The room around him warbled, bright blue light flooding his vision. Hux kept his head down, unable to look up into the blindingly bright light. General Pryde must keep the brightness turned up, blind old man.

“Yes, my hound?”

The idle thought crossed his mind that Snoke hadn’t called him ‘beautiful’ since Praxis. He’d choked on the word when Hux and Ren walked in with the holocron and then never used it again.

“My Lord, I humbly request the right to lead my Hounds in a hunt,” Hux said, still not looking up. He could barely see anything in the blinding light of the washed-out hologram, the last thing he wanted was to be punished for not meeting the Supreme Leader’s eyes when he couldn’t even see them.

“What manner of hunt is this?” Snoke asked.

Hux collected his thoughts. “My science team has theories that must be tested,” he said. “It is necessary in order to learn how to control Ilum’s kyber core. They need samples of kyber that have never been touched by Ilum.”

“Have them dismantle the kyber weaponry on board the _Locutor_ ,” Snoke said dismissively.

Hux looked up and felt his pupils constrict to points. The pointless brightness of the hologram felt like knives stabbing into his skull yet he refused to squint. “My Lord, please,” he pleaded. “They require untouched kyber, untainted by sentient hand. It’s the only way to--”

Hux felt the compression at his throat stealing his words. Snoke lifted him off of the transmission plate, its bright white light lost among all the blue of the hologram.

“I sent you and your Hounds to acquire one simple thing for me,” Snoke growled. “A trinket, a trifle. A **test!** Instead I find my prize despoiled and my beautiful hound _marked_ . Now you **dare** to make such a request of me!”

Marked? What?

Hux’s thoughts were interrupted by the sudden drop as he fell back to the transmission plate. He pulled his knees under himself, kneeling as he refused to cough.

“What is it your scientists require?” Snoke demanded.

Hux couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was that a ‘yes’? Even after everything else…

“They need samples of virgin untouched kyber from three worlds,” Hux allowed. “Dantooine, Jedha, and Mestare were chosen by Dr. Otero himself for their unique qualities. I have traced a hyperspace route that should keep us--”

“The Knights of Ren will be sent on your hunt for you,” Snoke said, cutting him off.

Hux felt the shock worse than any Force choke from the Supreme Leader. The Knights of Ren would take his hunt? He’d spent all this time training his Hounds, honing them, risking their lives and sanities on Praxis for a kriffing **test** and now he wouldn’t even get to use them? They had to rely on mercenaries?!

“Do you object?” Snoke asked, his tone almost mocking.

Hux looked down, tamping the indignant growl that rose in his chest. Of course he objected! He’d worked hard for this, risked his life and the lives of his Hounds, only for Snoke to favor a group of Force-sensitive mercenaries that didn’t even have proper names. “Of courssse not, Suprrreme Leaderrr…” As much as he tried not to he felt the words stretching, the growl rumbling forth in the Supreme Leader’s own title. It mortified him.

Snoke’s gentle chuckle in response only made his mortification worse.

And then everything went dark.

So much light faded away that for a moment Hux wondered if he’d gone blind. But then the vague details of the transmission plate pierced through the hazy afterimage that veiled his vision almost completely. The transmission must have ended, cut off from the _Kraken_ ’s side. 

Hux stayed kneeling on the transmission plate, catching his breath as his vision slowly cleared.

His scientists would get their kyber but it was not his Hounds who would retrieve it. Instead the Supreme Leader called upon the Knights of Ren, mystical mercenaries who would have no idea how much kyber to acquire, who would likely steal it from a downed Star Destroyer somewhere, who would taint the samples with their own fumblings! The data gained from these samples would be all but worthless. And all because he’d failed some unknown and unknowable test on Praxis.

Hux growled low in his throat, the sound growing to a primal shrieking roar as he howled his frustrations at the empty communications chamber.


	2. The Mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gore warning. Hux can be a messy eater when he has cause.

Captain Hux sat in his quarters, cross-legged upon his bed. His datapads lay around him, messages flashing their indignant little lights of urgency on the screens. They weren’t urgent, he knew better. Dr. Katsuo wanted him back in her lab for vision tests concerning adaptation of one of the new _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyers. Dr. Otero wanted to know when he’d be fetching kyber for them to test. Dr. Stovek wanted to see him on Ilum to discuss repurposing the mining trenches that ringed the planet. Dr. Gavin wanted to see him on Ilum to show off some new alloy that might extend a man-safe shaft right down to Ilum’s mantle-core boundary.

He missed an automatic message concerning a change of mission.

Three standard weeks. Three weeks ago he’d asked the Supreme Leader for the right to use his Hounds as he’d trained them, for small mercenary-type jobs best handled by First Order personnel without involving the military itself. Delicate yet necessary work that required secrecy to keep them all safe from New Republic action. Instead actual mercenaries got the job and Hux expected he’d have to find some way to override the Supreme Leader later, to redo the work that should have been given to him in the first place.

And all because of this.

The holocron in his hands didn’t open. It had never shown any signs of opening, not for him or Ren or the Supreme Leader himself. Maybe it was defective like the Supreme Leader believed. In which case, had removing it from the temple ruined it? Did it degrade the moment the illusion of the temple’s poetry broke?

Luckily there was no compulsion attached to the holocron, at least none that he noticed. Otherwise he was sure it would force him back onto the _Fenris,_ back to Praxis to return it to its hollow in the temple wall before giving himself to it and accepting its...

Hux heard the knock on his door but it was unimportant.

The knock sounded again. His room was small enough, he wouldn’t even have to get up to reach his desk and pound the button to release the door lock. But he didn’t move.

The door opened anyway.

Hux looked up and scowled. “Doors have never mattered to you before, why would they now?”

“Imperial locks are predictable,” RX-3081 said with a shrug. The nightvision of his helm activated, adding a glow to the lenses of his helm as he scanned the dimly lit room. His black armor was somehow scuffed and dull and Hux could never figure out how. No mission had yet required the kind of work that would leave their armor so well worn. RX-3081’s Individual Duties didn’t involve any major hand-to-hand training.

Hux gave a noncommittal hum. His gaze turned back to the holocron.

“Is that…” RX-3081 stepped inside and the door slid closed behind him.

“This was the temple’s treasure,” Hux said, holding the holocron in one hand. “This is what the Supreme Leader sent us to find. And it’s useless.”

RX-3081 sat on the edge of the bed, gloved hands reaching out to touch the edges of the crystalline pyramid. It felt… warm. “Why is it useless?” he asked.

“The Supreme Leader couldn’t access its secrets. He insists we must have damaged it in our fumbling attempt to resist the temple’s lure.”

“That’s why he let you keep it,” RX-3081 realized. “Because it’s worthless to him.”

Hux nodded.

RX-3081 gently took the holocron from Hux’s hands. Hux let go, watching his Hound handle the delicate crystalline pyramid. He felt none of the feral possessiveness that he’d felt when Dr. Otero approached it with lust-filled eyes. That moment must have been a fluke then, a trick of his own mind as he’d dwelt upon the Supreme Leader’s words. 

“Strange that we went through so much fear and pain over so small a thing,” RX-3081 mused. “I nearly died for this. And the Supreme Leader didn’t even want it.” He stroked his gloved hands over its sides, feeling carven patterns layered within, layer upon layer upon layer. If he concentrated he might be able to follow them down, a winding maze to the middle…

Hux squinted at his datapad. He held it away from his face, his own night-eyes rendering the words fuzzy and too bright. “Lights 60%,” he called. The lights came up a fraction and Hux expanded the lettering so its size provided some clarity.

“Oh…” He began to purr.

The sound snapped RX-3081 out of his musing. He realized he’d been tracing his gloved finger along the holocron’s sides and stopped, putting it down on the desk. “What is it?” he asked.

“The Knights of Ren have failed at Mestare,” Hux purred. “We’re being called out to assist them.” He tapped out a command on his datapad, summoning all of his Hounds to Simulation Room 23. “Briefing in 15 minutes. We’re going on a hunt.”

*****

By the time the last of the Hounds filed in, Simulation Room 23 was already up and running, the neural amplifier active behind Hux’s ear. The galaxy swirled around them, hyperspace lanes traced to Jedha then Dantooine then Mestare. FN-2304 and RX-3081 grinned, they remembered this map.

“The ultimate goal of this mission is to gather kyber,” Hux said. He waited for the incredulous looks to subside. It didn’t matter that his Hounds wore their helms, he could feel the looks they gave him. “The scientists of Ilum have a working hypothesis that kyber is alive. That every planet that produces kyber is therefore its own unique individual. All of the kyber samples collected thus far, all of the kyber in the Star Destroyer turbolasers, all of the kyber the First Order currently possesses, is all sourced from Ilum. Therefore, in order to test their hypothesis, the scientists need kyber sourced from different planets.

“Jedha.” Hux pointed to the first planet and the map zoomed in on the Jedha system. “Jedha was the site of one of the first Death Star weapons tests. It’s kyber mines produced the gigantic crystals used exclusively in the Death Star’s construction. The holy cities upon Jedha’s surface have been destroyed but those mines are still active.

“Dantooine.” Hux pointed to the next and the map zoomed over. “Dantooine was where the Jedi mined the majority of their own kyber before they moved their operations to Ilum a thousand years ago. Dr. Otero wrote his Masters Thesis on the Jedi’s kyber mines at Dantooine, he has already provided me with their history and accurate maps.

“Mestare.” Hux pointed to the third planet and the map zoomed again. “Mestare's kyber crystals were known for producing lightsabre blades capable of cutting through cortosis. The mines there were guarded by an insular offshoot of the Jedi order. It’s likely they still are.”

The map reset, laying at table-height between Hux and his Hounds. “This mission was initially given to the Knights of Ren,” he allowed. “As of fifteen minutes ago the mission is ours. Rescuing the Knights of Ren is a secondary objective. We are ordered to begin at Mestare where the Knights of Ren sent their last distress call and then went silent.”

“Wait, does this mean we’re fighting Jedi?” TK-1959 asked.

“We’re going to need slugthrowers,” JN-1301 realized. She did not sound disappointed at the prospect.

“A Jedi can’t block snipers from two directions,” RX-3081 said, his voice carefully level as though trying to convince himself.

“TT-1098, head down to the hangar bay and get the _Fenris_ loaded,” Hux ordered. “Make sure they stock food I can eat or this is going to be a long, dangerous trip.”

TT-1098 saluted and left.

“Everyone else, amplifiers,” Hux ordered. “Arm yourselves with the weapons you carry in the field and only those weapons. You need to know what we may be facing.” His Hounds obeyed, taking the neural amplifiers from the technician bay, pulling off their helms, and sticking them behind their ears. At Hux’s nod they all pulled their helms back on.

Pistols and E-11s and sniper rifles warbled into existence. Even Hux wielded his own rifle with the long Regency barrel rarely seen outside of Outer Rim holovids.

“You need to know what we may be facing,” Hux said again.

The Simulation Room went dark, though that was no obstacle. Active night vision in the Hounds’ helms brought the room back to eerie green brightness while Hux’s night-eyes merely amplified the ambient light back up to visibility. They all saw the unassuming hologram that warbled into existence and readied themselves.

A single distinctive hiss and hum bathed the room in pale blue light. The blank-eyed snarl of the scruffy blond farmboy glowed eerily in the light of his lightsabre.

Luke Skywalker.

Hux shot first, the Skywalker batting away the sniper shot like it was an insect. Hux ducked and rolled as the Skywalker came for him.

RX-3081 distracted it with a sniper shot of his own. The Skywalker turned and batted it away before reflecting AR fire back to those who’d dealt it. SK-0331 and FN-2304 both dropped with sudden screams.

Hux jumped in with fangs and both knives bared only to be cut down with a single sabre strike across his chest. He dropped and stayed where he fell, eyes open and empty and stunned.

“Kriff!” RX-3081 shouted. “Take it down! Take it down!”

TK-1959 aimed low with his pistol, shooting at the legs. The Skywalker batted the shots away though they were angled wrong to return to anyone. RX-3081 took the opportunity and shot.

The Skywalker jolted at the force of the sniper bolt to its shoulder. It’s blank stare turned to one of confusion.

FR-2116 shot it, putting five shots from his pistol in its unprotected belly as it doubled over. It stepped back then unfolded, standing back up. It raised its lightsabre, though favoring its injured right side.

“What is it with things not dying to sniper shots?!” JN-1301 demanded, offended on RX-3081’s behalf. She dove, shooting with her AR while she fell, peppering the Skywalker’s general vicinity with plasma. It returned blaster shots to where she’d been at each shot, finally catching her with the last bolt. She skidded across the floor and did not get up.

GR-8758 ducked behind Hux’s downed body, laying on the floor behind him as he used his unconscious Captain for cover. “Please don’t move,” he whispered as he laid the barrel of his sniper rifle against Hux’s side. He waited until TK-1959 began taking potshots at the legs again then fired while the Skywalker was distracted.

The Skywalker arched forward from the shot in the back and RX-3081 took his own shot while it was distracted. The Skywalker’s head jerked at the impact and then finally fell.

The blue lightsabre rolled away, beam still lit. And then it faded away, deleted from the simulation, plunging the Simulation Room back into darkness. When the lights came back up the Skywalker was gone.

“Light and kriff,” RX-3081 gasped. “Who’s okay and who’s down?”

“I’m okay,” GR-8758 called. “Captain’s out.”

“That was… intense…” TK-1959 gasped. “JN-1301 is down.”

“I’m here,” FR-2116 called. “SK-0331 and FN-2304 are not.”

“Pfassk,” RX-3081 hissed. “Half of us went down trying to take out one single Jedi and that was just a sim. And Mestare may have a whole cult of them.”

“We’re kriffed,” FR-2116 realized.

“Half of us survived,” GR-8758 said. “That’s pretty good odds.”

“What did we do different?” TK-1959 asked. He looked at himself and the two snipers who survived. “Snipers…”

“Hux is a sniper,” FR-2116 pointed out.

RX-3081 shook his head. “He got cut down trying to go close-combat. But it wasn’t just snipers.”

“You did all the damage,” TK-1959 protested. “We just…” He trailed off as he realized. “We distracted it allowing you to take your shots.”

“I got lucky shots in while it was still recovering from the first shot,” FR-2116 agreed.

“A Jedi is only one person,” RX-3081 realized. “It only has one lightsabre. It can be distracted. If it can be distracted then a sniper can make the kill.”

“We’ll need to control the battlefield,” GR-8758 agreed. “Maybe post snipers. If any of the Knights of Ren are still alive we can use them to bolster our numbers. I bet they’re plenty distracting.”

A groan drew their attention. That groan turned to a low murr of embarrassed displeasure.

“You brought a knife to a lightsabre fight,” RX-3081 drawled.

“Who killed it?” Hux gasped. He rolled over onto his back, hands going to the diagonal line of pain that arced across his entire torso.

“Group effort,” GR-8758 said. “TK-1959 and JN-1301 distracted it, FR-2116, RX-3081, and I all took advantage.”

“Who survived?” Hux asked, still not getting up.

“Myself,” TK-1959 said. "GR-8758, FR-2116, RX-3081." Hux purred even as he refused to get up.

“A Jedi is just a human,” RX-3081 said, hands folded behind himself as though he were giving a report. “It only has one lightsabre. It can be distracted. It can be overwhelmed. We were discussing the possibility of posting snipers to control the battlefield. At the minimum I recommend a pincer-type attack.”

Hux chirped his agreement without moving.

“And not getting into close combat with the Jedi when one has a perfectly good sniper rifle available,” RX-3081 drawled, deadpanned.

Hux hissed. He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. “Ow. Okay. Wake everyone up, check for injuries, then we do this again.”

“Again?!” TK-1959 asked.

“While 50% survival against the Skywalker penalty is impressive I would prefer higher,” Hux said as he stood on wobbly legs. He used the simulation to resummon his own sniper rifle and tried to lean on it, however the holograms weren’t quite that complex.

Three more groans echoed around the room as the other three began to wake up.

Hux took a deep breath and clapped his hands twice. “All right everyone, in five minutes we do that again.”

Three groans turned to seven as everyone protested. Hux ignored it all and stalked in a circle to shake off the last of his own stun. Soon the lights would go out and they’d all face the Skywalker again.

For all Hux knew they might be forced to face Skywalker himself out in the field. There were rumors over the past three years that he’d been sighted in the field with a teenaged padawan, looting old temples and contacting old cults just like the one on Mestare.

Twin lines of remembered pain shot across his neck and his torso as the lights went out.

Then that terrible hiss and hum and the battle began again.

*****

The _Fenris_ dropped out of hyperspace.

The planet of Mestare loomed below, stormy and sandy and cold. Smaller than Ilum, it promised gravity only a hair weaker than Coruscant-standard. Its small star glowed pale orange in the distance. Cold black oceans roiled with bright white storm vortices that encircled the polar regions. A single broad continent wrapped around the planet’s equator, separating the two oceans from each other. 

“Sensors show no spaceport,” TT-1098 warned.

Hux sat in the co-pilot’s seat and hissed low under his breath as he watched the planet below. Sensors showed no large settlements of any kind, though the coasts teemed with life-form readings. 

“I’m not picking up the _Night Buzzard_ ,” TT-1098 said.

“I doubt the Knights of Ren would use an Imperial transponder,” Hux warned. He took over the sensors, scanning for any transponder signals in any of the Imperial bands. From there he expanded his search to the Republic bands, both the historical frequencies and those he’d learned about in Intelligence briefings. Nothing.

To be fair, he didn’t expect to find anything. Ren did not strike him as a man who followed laws meant to make him easier to track and find. 

“Are we sure they’re here?” TT-1098 asked.

“Not particularly,” Hux admitted. “Our orders were to complete the mission first, assist them second.” He changed the sensor settings, instead scanning for kyber deposits. Various dots appeared on the transparasteel viewport, an augmented reality display overlaid on the planet below. Hux grinned, purring at the technology.

“You let your engineers play around with the _Fenris_ ,” TT-1098 accused.

“I may have,” Hux admitted. “How do you know this isn’t my work?”

“You don’t have the time.”

“Fair.” Hux pointed to a particular dot on the display. “That one looks promising,” he said. “Take us into atmosphere for a closer look.”

“Yes sir.”

The _Fenris_ slowed to suborbital speed, dropping toward the planet below in a graceful arc as her outstretched wings caught lift and began to glide. The Lambda shuttle dropped subsonic as it approached a plateau where small grazing animals browsed at dried shrubbery, where the wind-blasted ruins of a temple remained carved into a cliff face, where the _Night Buzzard_ squatted amongst sand and rocks and the remains of a campfire.

The _Fenris_ folded her wings and settled down on the plateau, sending grazing animals scattering.

*****

“Why?!” Hux demanded.

Ren stood flanked by the pilot Ren and the muzzled Ren and Hux could feel the both of them staring despite their helms. Ren didn’t stare but Hux wouldn’t expect him to, the man was blind. 

“I felt it necessary,” Ren said, as though that explained everything.

Hux growled. Around him his Hounds scouted the plateau, examined the _Fenris_ , and took potshots at the few grazing animals that hadn’t scattered into the rocks yet. The mechanic Ren tapped the shoulder of the pilot Ren and gestured to the horizon. The pilot Ren drew a modified sniper rifle and joined the Hounds in their target practice.

Ren opened his mouth to say something before turning to the muzzled Ren instead, whispering something under his breath. The muzzled Ren shrugged.

Hux turned back to Ren. “You ‘felt it necessary’,” he growled. “I receive orders from the Supreme Leader that you’ve all failed in this mission. My orders are to complete it for you. If I have the time I’m **allowed** to assist you. I’m led to believe you’ve been captured by cultists or killed by Skywalker or fallen to your own…” Hux stopped himself from insulting Ren aloud, though he noticed the blind man raising an eyebrow in amusement. Hux took a deep breath, letting it out in a low growl that rumbled satisfyingly in his chest.

“Why complain?” Ren asked. “Snoke told me you tried to take this mission first.”

“I **proposssed** this mission!” Hux snarled. "Of course I tried to take it first."

“Then you would know this,” Ren said. “Why are we out here collecting rocks? Your military owns Ilum. Why do you need more?”

“Science,” Hux said, as though that explained everything. From Ren’s look it did not.

The sound of blaster fire preceded cheers of success. 

“Every kill will be dragged back to camp!” Hux snarled.

Cheers turned to groans. GR-8758 and RX-3081 stood up out of their sniper stances, looped their rifles behind their backs, and trudged out into the field.

“Your shadows haven’t improved,” Ren mused. “I suppose you’ll eat it raw.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Hux asked.

The muzzled Ren pulled Ren close and his helm’s vocoder rumbled as he spoke. Ren nodded, though his expression was less assured than before. “Maybe… we should discuss our options,” Ren allowed.

Hux growled before turning from Ren and his mercenaries. Hux clapped his hands together once. “Make camp,” he shouted. Something about this whole situation unnerved him, it made his crest stand on end under his armor. Hopefully some proper food would help settle his nerves.

*****

The orange sun lay low on the horizon. A blank spot had been cleared between the two ships and a blazing fire roared in the middle. Ren watched as Kuruk Ren, his pilot, whispered to him. Ren could See the scene before him through the Shadows but Kuruk’s whispers painted an entirely different picture.

The same shadow hounds from Praxis lounged and lay and cavorted like animals while Kuruk described Stormtroopers in black armor prepping camp and cleaning weapons and daring each other to games and pointing out the nearby planets of this system glowing in the sky. A shadow yipped and play-bowed while SK-0331 offered Vicrul and Ap’lek sticks and challenged them to a spar. Shadows lurked on the edge of camp, growling challenges into the distance while RX-3081 and TT-1098 scouted a perimeter. A shadow savaged the corpses of dead animals with its teeth while Captain Hux… savaged the corpses of dead animals with his teeth.

Ren snorted. At least that looked right.

Captain Hux tore at the carcasses with teeth and knives, carving off chunks and limbs to be hung from ropes over the fire. His shadow rumbled in contentment as it cracked open a ribcage and pulled out the creature’s liver while Hux purred as he took luxurious bites, squirming as blood dripped from his chin, ran down his neck, and seeped under his officer’s breastplate. A shadow watched hungrily, jaws slavering and tail wagging, while JN-1301 set up A-frames of sticks and tied them with plasma-treated rope. Another shadow lay on its belly, begging for attention and perhaps a bite, while TK-1959 tied up dismembered limbs and chunks of meat, handing them off to JN-1301 to be tied to the A-frames to roast over the fire.

Shadows rolled in the dust as GR-8758 and FR-2116 lay on the ground and looked up at the sky, trying to figure out what the stars would look like once night fell and the both of them coming up with different answers. A shadow licked its paws and groomed its crest while FN-2304 cleaned his E-11.

Calling them here was a favor, one Ren knew he would pay dearly for. 

*****

Sticky blood dried on Hux’s bare skin as he sat on a rock near the fire. His armor was off, blood drying in crevasses that would need to be sand-scrubbed later. His uniform jacket and undershirt were likewise off, bloodstained casualties of dismantling the three carcasses brought to him by his attentive and skilled Hounds. Blood itched where it stained his hands up his arms and painted down his chin, his neck, and his chest.

The charred smell of cooked and cooking meat was less satisfying than the iron-stench of blood that surrounded him. 

Hux couldn’t possibly eat three carcasses worth of meat in one or even ten sittings. As a compromise his Hounds used knots and ingenuity to dangle legs and haunches and loins from ropes over the fire to roast. Now they feasted as thoroughly as their Captain while the stars wheeled overhead.

“You’ve always eaten like this?” Ren asked.

“When I can manage it,” Hux allowed. “It’s easier now that I have standing permission from the Supreme Leader to eat my kills.”

“You didn’t have that right before?” Ren wondered.

SK-0331 answered that one as he waved a half-eaten rib for emphasis. “He kills people.”

“Ah.”

The Ren with the tarnished silver grille over their mask sat heavily next to Hux, clearly interested in this new turn of events. Hux raised one eyebrow and bared his metal teeth in an experimental leer. The Ren didn’t flee, instead Hux got the impression they were extremely interested.

“Vicrul’s weapon is fear,” Ren said, gesturing to the Ren with the silver grille. “Most people are terrified of being eaten. He’s interested in learning how you wield that fear.”

“Vicrul, then?” RX-3081 realized. This was the first time one of the Rens had freely offered up a name.

Hux considered it. Of the three carcasses, only one was dismantled to hang on the fire. The other two were skinned and bled, the innards removed, and the bodies moved to one of the cargo holds where the environmental controls could be set to near freezing. While Hux had already gorged himself on two livers, one pancreas, all of the thymuses, and nibbled on one spleen, the rest of the good organs were still available, all laid out on one of the animal’s own skins like an offering. He was full but not overstuffed, not yet, and overstuffing was such a rare feeling for him… He purred in assent before getting up and then returning with one three-chambered heart.

Hux licked it, purring as his rough tongue slowly stripped the fat cap off of the muscle. He could **feel** eyes on him, as Rens and his Hounds watched with fascination and intent. His wide black eyes shone iridescent green in the firelight as he purred, both hands dripping with fresh blood and his own drool as he licked, never breaking eye contact with Vicrul.

Muscle fibers shredded under his tongue as the fat cap dissolved and he pulled the ruined heart out of his mouth, giggling as he purred. Then he brought it back up, biting in with his titanium canines.

Blood seeped from the central chamber down his chin and neck and chest, flushing his ventral spots. A predator’s muzzle of brown and red and dark spots stained his face, trailing down his neck and chest to his navel, spreading across his shoulders and trailing down his spine.

Vicrul made an indignant sound almost like a squeak and stopped themself from reaching out to touch all those spots. “Blood drips from you,” they said reverently. “How far does it seep?”

“All the way down his back,” RX-3081 said. “Halfway down his legs.”

Hux purred as he stuffed his face into the central chamber of the heart, nibbling at the cartilaginous valves separating it from the length of pulmonary arteries and aorta that still dangled from the organ. His purr didn’t quite cover the snapping crunching sounds as he ripped valves from their moorings, crunching them in his teeth simply because he could.

Vicrul squealed and reached again, drawing their hands down Hux’s spine, close but not touching. They pulled back, both hands holding each other confined as though they were not allowed to touch and yet unwilling to ask for permission.

Hux pulled the heart off of his face, one atrium in each hand. He bared his teeth, blood and drool dripping from his chin. Then he dug his fingers in. His jaws snapped closed over the ventricle and he growled as he ripped the organ to shreds.

Vicrul clapped in utter joy as shreds of meat and flecks of drool and blood sprayed over them even as the others pulled away with disgusted faces.

SK-0331 tossed his half-eaten rib onto the fire. “I’m done, I’ll be elsewhere,” he said. 

Ren raised an eyebrow as SK-0331 all but fled back into the shuttle. He may have heard the sound of a cargo bay door closing, the soundproofing blocking any sounds that SK-0331 might need to unleash.

Vicrul watched SK-0331 flee then turned back to Hux then looked back at the shuttle. They reached out, touching on the threads of fear that seeped past that soundproofed door and gasped. “You ate someone he cared for,” Vicrul whispered.

Hux looked into the fire. “He had his opportunity for vengeance,” he said. “He failed. He belongs to me now.” He didn’t need to see Vicrul’s face to tell the Ren looked at him in shock. But he didn’t expect that Ren to grab another heart from the pile of organs and present it like an offering.

Hux was already full. Quite full. But the Knights of Ren watched him with interest even as his Hounds looked on. Only Ren looked unsure even as Vicrul offered to feed him.

Hux took a deep breath. He reached for the heart but Vicrul pulled it from his reach only to present it again. Hux growled in warning, he was not to be toyed with. He snarled as Vicrul pressed then pulled away, flecks of bloody drool flying to marr Vicrul’s silvery helm. Still Vicrul persisted.

Hux hissed, unwilling to continue this game. He wasn’t nearly hungry enough to snap at his food like an animal and he certainly wasn’t going to perform for the Knights of Ren the way his father’s friends had… Well. Instead he reached into his own belt, pulling a knife and stabbing it into the heart as Vicrul flinched and pulled away.

Hux snorted and snarled, long and loud. He had his trophy, the heart impaled on one of his monomolecular blades, the blade stabbed into the ground where Vicrul had sat a moment before. Vicrul pulled back with the sound of ripping fabric, their black cloak caught between the heart and the blade.

Hux pulled the knife from the ground, the heart sliding off of the blade to hit the dirt with a wet ‘plop’. But Hux wasn’t going to end it there. He picked up the organ, wiping caked dirt from it with a swipe of his blood-stained hand. Then he brought it to his mouth, sunk his teeth into it, and ripped it apart, flinging his head from side to side to send chunks flying as he ruined it completely.

Vicrul nodded and retreated, moving to sit next to the muzzled Ren and the disturbed pilot Ren.

“If you’re quite finished,” Ren snarled. But his ire was focused entirely on Vicrul. Vicrul nodded and sunk down, looking smaller next to their fellow Rens.

Ren then turned his blind eyes on Hux. “Now then, Captain, you know why we’re all here,” he said as though this were all a normal human mission. “Care to enlighten us?”

Hux blinked. It took effort to collect his thoughts, to put them back together into something that made sense on a scientific level. But then he doubted any of the Rens were educated enough to require such communication. He murred as he stood and shook himself off, letting his crest flare in the darkness. His spots flushed warm under the starlight even as drool and blood dried on his chest. He sighed and walked around the campfire, stretching his legs even as his overfull stomach protested. It was a comfortable discomfort, one he wanted to feel again. Next time without idiots teasing him for their own amusement.

“My scientists have a hypothesis,” Hux began. “Kyber is alive. Every world that produces kyber is its own unique entity, its own life form. But every piece of kyber that the First Order holds came from Ilum, meaning they’re all pieces of that Ilum entity connected to it through the Force. My scientists want to test kyber from other sources.”

“Jedha, Dantooine, and Mestare,” Ren said.

“Yesss. Jedha was decimated and remains unpopulated. One of my scientists did research on the caves at Dantooine and provided me with a copy of his work. And Mestare for its unique properties.”

“Of course,” Ren allowed, though his tone wasn’t quite accepting. “How will your scientists test what you bring them?”

“Any way they physically can.”

“Only physically?”

Hux snuffed. “None of my scientists are Force-sensitive.”

Ren scanned the assembled Hounds, his blind gaze landing on one. RX-3081 shivered under the weight of that gaze. “Your hound’s shadow is stronger now than before,” he mused. “Almost strong enough…” Ren turned to his pilot who stood up and approached, the blinders on their helm keeping their focus on RX-3081.

“What are you saying?” RX-3081 asked.

“You can touch the Shadow,” Ren said with a grin that Hux would have been proud of.

Hux turned to watch RX-3081, his night-eyes roving over his Hound’s perpetually scuffed armor. A hundred little moments flashed across his mind: locks undone with the flick of a pick, the guards of their creche who never seemed to catch him in the middle of the night, the perfect bullseye records on the kilometer range, the hallucinations on Praxis that only RX-3081 could see, even the voice in his own mind screaming for him to stop as his defanged jaws crushed RX-3081’s neck…

“You’re Force-sensitive,” Hux realized.


	3. Mestare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sections of this chapter constitute a [Bad Things Happen Bingo](https://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/post/616692789320810496/here-is-your-card-for-bad-things-happen-bingo) prompt fill for More Expendable Than You.

“You’re Force-sensitive.”

Hux’s words echoed in RX-3081’s ears like an accusation. Like he should have known. After all, how could he not know? Force users were capable of great showy things: lifting rocks with their minds, implanting thoughts into the unsuspecting, altering the flows of battles. They were great pilots, elegant fighters, expert snipers, surely he must have known. He could have **used** his powers, in training or in the field or even… even against his own cadre, his own squad. Could he have done these things without even himself knowing?

RX-3081 felt all of that at once, weighing on his mind like a shameful secret drawn out into the open. He couldn’t look at the three people staring at him, not the hungry black-eyed stare of his blood-drenched captain nor the blank yet eerily heavy blind gaze of the scarred and triumphant Ren. Not even the pilot Ren with their slitted helm, blinders on either side like a fathier’s bridle narrowing their focus to only what lay in front of them.

RX-3081 shivered even as he felt the others all shift away from him. Worse, he wondered if he were feeling that through his senses or through the Force or if there even was a difference. Was there a difference? Had there ever **been** a difference?

“I-I’m not…” RX-3081 trembled as he tried not to think about it. “I don’t… I’m…” He curled his arms around himself. He didn’t know. Wasn’t someone like that supposed to know?

“A word,” Hux snapped, his focus on Ren. He stalked off into the night, glowing eyes burning like a predator’s lurking outside the fire’s comforting light. Ren raised one eyebrow and followed into the darkness.

RX-3081 watched them disappear into the untamed wild of this planet. It was easier than looking at his fellows who all watched him with varying looks of curiosity, jealousy, want, but worst of all **fear**.

“I didn’t know,” RX-3081 whispered.

“How do you not know something like that?!” JN-1301 demanded. “It’s only the Force!”

“How do we know you haven’t been using it on us?” GR-8758 asked.

“I don’t know!” RX-3081 shouted. “I don’t know any of it! If I am doing anything I don’t know about it. I don’t know how! I…” He curled in on himself in the dirt, hiding his face behind his armored knees. “I don’t want this.”

“It explains the way you shoot,” FN-2304 said. “Your timing’s off. You don’t stabilize your rifle. You don’t breathe right for a sniper. Yet you still hit your target. I wondered why.”

“Could that explain TK’s pistolwork too?” TT-1098 asked.

“Stars I hope not,” TK-1959 said.

FN-2304 shook his head. “TK-1959 uses sniper forms with the pistol,” he mused. “He’s not using the Force, he’s just weird.”

“Thanks,” TK-1959 said, his tone caught between sincerity and not.

RX-3081 winced as he listened to his fellows around him. He didn’t want this. He had no idea why anyone would.

*****

Hux stalked away from the fire into the darkness of the plateau. Dried scrub pulled at his clothing, scratching at his shirtless torso, but he needed distance. He needed some sort of privacy away from the fire and both of their squads. He heard footsteps behind him, the carefully placed footsteps of a blind man who used the Force to See. That same Force he could See in one of Hux’s own.

Finally Hux turned around, his night-eyes spotting the fire and all its occupants. From here it was difficult to pick out individuals, their movement in the firelight all he had to trace them. All except Ren, who sauntered after him with the smug look of someone who had the power to deny him food. Hux hissed low, he would not be denied this time.

“All right, he’s yours,” Ren allowed, hands held out from his frame where he knew Hux could see them. “None of them are mine.”

Hux kept hissing, weaving from side to side as he considered this Ren.

“I have dedicated myself to the Shadow,” Ren allowed. “I’ve taken its name as my own, the Ren. It just is. It lives, it consumes. It doesn’t apologize. It’s the natural order, nothing more. You understand this, more than some of my own Knights. You don’t apologize for a murder, you use it. You consume it, messily if it pleases you. You’d eat your own men if you had to. The Ren is the same, it doesn’t stop to consider what it’s burning or the morals of it or whatever goal it might work for or against. None of those matter.”

Hux stalked around Ren, circling him outside of arm’s reach.

“The Knights of Ren don’t follow me,” Ren continued. “Nor should they. They follow the Ren same as I do. It brings us it's gifts and we accept what it brings.”

“And ssso you believe it brought him to you?” Hux hissed.

“It did.”

Hux growled and Ren smirked at the distinct ‘mine’ he heard underneath the sounds.

“To follow the Ren your Stormtrooper must be able to touch it,” Ren said. “He can. You know this, you wonder how you could have missed it. It’s so obvious now on hindsight, isn’t it?”

Hux shook his head, snarling at the sensation of another mind brushing against his own. Memories unbidden rushed to the surface, called there by Ren’s probing touch. Did RX-3081 shoot the spider queen through the spinnerets or did he sever the silk strand itself? How did he survive the spider queen’s venom? What if he hadn’t been hallucinating, what if instead he’d watched through the Force as one by one they all lost their humanity to Praxis? What does that kind of knowledge do to a man?

Hux snarled and jumped. He tackled Ren, landing on Ren’s chest as he pinned the man’s neck with one hand and his sabre arm with the other. “Get out of my head,” Hux growled, making sure Ren got the chance to smell and feel the hot breath on his face.

One more image but it wasn’t a memory. For a scant moment Hux felt himself on his back with a monster above him, then the moment was gone. But the damage was done; the monster’s image was both familiar and unwelcome. The deep red mane dripping with blood, the alabaster-pale skin, the solid green eyes, the long lashing tail and pointed ears, the spots splashed across the monster’s muzzle with its long titanium teeth. Oh yes, he remembered that particular image well. 

Hux snarled in fury then jumped off of Ren, slinking off to watch him in the darkness.

Ren coughed to clear his throat of Hux’s hot stinking breath. He then rolled over and got to his feet. “He also needs a good death,” Ren said. “He needs to prove he’s willing to take what the Ren provides, to enjoy it. Tell me, Captain, has he ever killed for his own enjoyment? Or has he only ever killed under orders? What if he had to kill you in order to join us?”

“He’s tried to kill me before,” Hux warned. “He failed. Now he belongs to me.”

Ren smirked. “Is failing to kill you a prerequisite for joining your squad?”

Hux snorted. Some of the tension bled away. “It happens occasionally,” he admitted.

“And yet you trust them.” 

“Every one of yours is a willing, eager murderer,” Hux countered. “And yet you trust them.”

Ren understood Hux’s spoken and yet unspoken point. Neither of them were forced to trust their squads, they chose to instead. They chose when to trust and when not to. That trust was earned by blood and deed, given and retracted as the situation demanded. 

But that meant…

“He’s yours, then,” Ren realized. “For now, at least.” He smirked. “How will you train him? Will you hand him over to Snoke?”

Hux wasn’t sure. He should trust the Supreme Leader, but Snoke had broken that trust, instead giving this mission to the Knights of Ren. He still wasn’t sure why or why the Knights had rejected it with such subterfuge. “I’ll think of sssomething…” Hux mused.

Ren hummed his acceptance. “Snoke already has an apprentice,” he allowed. “We’re meeting the kid on Varnak. I called you out here to finish the mission for us. It’s a good thing I did, it seems Snoke didn’t give us any of the details behind your little rock hunt.”

“Somehow I’m not surprisssed,” Hux agreed. “He never asssked for any.”

“Snoke vouches for the kid,” Ren admitted. “We’ll give him a whirl. If he checks out we’ll keep him. But Snoke knows we follow the Ren, not him. I won’t keep him if he’s not worth it.”

Hux wondered at that, and if Ren would have a choice should this apprentice prove to be unfit.

From Ren’s harsh glance and the way he stalked off wordlessly back to the fire, Hux knew Ren had heard that thought. He waited then followed, relishing the opportunity to slink in unseen darkness with no one to judge.

When he got back to the fire the Rens were already filing into their ship to spend the night. His Hounds awaited orders, a heavy silence betraying the nature of whatever conversation wasn’t happening. RX-3081 sat alone, his knees pulled up to his chest, as the others all kept their distance while trying to make it look like they weren’t keeping their distance.

Hux hissed, clicking his teeth once. Every Hound turned their attention to him.

“We explore the temple tomorrow morning,” Hux announced. “The Knightsss of Ren may join us if they ssso wish, they may not. They have pressing business elsewhere, that’s why we were called out to finish the job.”

“Yes sir,” FN-2304 said.

Hux nodded, accepting his answer for the squad’s. “Everyone back on the _Fenris_ ,” he ordered. “Try to get some sleep. We don’t know what we’ll find tomorrow.”

Hux watched them all file into the _Fenris_ one by one, all of them glancing at RX-3081 as though they were no longer sure what to make of him. To be fair, Hux wasn’t entirely sure either. He kept his eyes on RX-3081 as the man unfolded, stood up, grabbed his helmet, and slowly walked up the ramp into the shuttle.

He’d think of something. He had to.

*****

A mesa stood upon the plateau. Desert scrub crept up the sides of the mesa, losing purchase and piling up at the base like blown tumbleweeds among rubble piles of crumbled stone and sand. Carved into the cliff face stood a simple temple, columns of stone flanking an unadorned entryway that led deeper into the mesa.

“No statues,” SK-0331 mused.

“Not like Praxis,” FR-2116 agreed.

“We’re also not hallucinating the temple at its height,” Hux reminded them. “At least, I hope not.”

They stood before the temple, each of them nervously gripping their field packs, none of them eager to be the first to enter. They all remembered the mirrored corridor of Praxis.

“This isn’t a Sith temple,” Ren said. “The power here is undedicated.”

Hux was glad the Knights of Ren had elected to stay the day, at least long enough to explore the temple. He gathered the Knights had their own reasons but Hux didn’t care. He was here to pick up enough kyber for his scientists to test their hypotheses, any artifacts found in the temple weren’t his concern.

“This is a Jedi temple then,” TK-1959 said, his voice modulator unable to hide his displeasure.

“The Jedi didn’t dedicate their temples to people,” Ren allowed. “They venerated their legends and the Light.”

“Without shadows the light has no meaning,” RX-3081 mused aloud.

Hux watched as the muzzled Ren gave Ren a look that despite their helm could only be described as ‘pleading’. Ren shook his head and they slumped in dejection.

“But without light the shadows are eternal,” Vicrul Ren said. They spoke as though completing a ritual that RX-3081 had stumbled upon without knowing it.

Now the deathmask Ren whined in what could only be unabashed want. Ren pointed at Hux. Hux bared his teeth and growled; the deathmask Ren decided it wasn’t worth it.

Ren pulled his pilot to stand before him. “Describe what you See,” he ordered.

The pilot took a deep breath, centering themself. The blinders blocked out the light of the orange sun, allowing them to focus on the temple and only the temple. “The corridor is empty,” the pilot said. “It descends below, far below, all of it empty. A sea of darkness bubbles up from beneath, something lurks in the Shadow. Terrible things happened here, the caverns remember. Vader…”

“Lord Vader was here, then,” Hux mused.

Ren glared at him and hissed through his teeth, demanding silence.

The pilot shook their head. “That’s all I can See,” they said. “The Jedi aren’t here anymore. We should be safe.”

“One of Lord Vader’s tasks in the Empire was to seek out and destroy isolated Jedi sects that might challenge the Empire,” Hux explained. “Rightfully so, we all saw what one self-styled Jedi could do when poisoned by the Rebellion’s ideals.”

“Skywalker isn’t so tough,” Ren said. “He’s soft. He falls to a bluff like any man.”

“You’ve faced him?” FN-2304 asked.

Ren smirked before pulling his blank mask over his face and walking into the temple corridor.

Hux watched the Knights of Ren follow their master before nodding for his Hounds to follow as well. He’d never seen the Knights of Ren in combat before but now he was less worried about their prowess. Anyone who could survive Luke Skywalker in real life must have skills worthy of respect.

Darkness swallowed them all.

Hounds pulled hand lamps from their packs. Those who carried ARs clipped the lamps to their blasters. Ren pulled his red lightsabre and activated it, using the light to lead them. Between them the group had enough light to pick their way across the smooth temple floor.

Until the first Hound looked down.

“Kriff,” TT-1098 swore. “Everyone, wait.”

Lamps angled to touch the floor.

The antechamber of the temple was littered with bones.

“Old corpses,” GR-8758 realized. He kicked at a pile of what looked like dusty rubble. It shifted, bones still held together by sinew and desiccated skin. The robes of a Jedi cultist were wrapped around the corpse like a death shroud. The skull’s face was trapped in a rictus scream, teeth bared and eye sockets empty. “Left where they fell.”

JN-1301 knelt down next to one of the piles. She turned it over to face the ceiling, the black hole in the front panel of its robes betraying how it died. She shone her hand lamp at the burnt fringes of that hole, rubbing some of the carbonized fibers between her fingers. Her HUD showed her what information it could, peaks in the UV spectrum identifying carbon compounds that could only be caused by a high temperature plasma. “Might have been a lightsabre,” she said.

FN-2304 found better proof, a severed arm. The bone was cleaved neatly through, the edges burned. “I’d call it a lightsabre,” he agreed.

JN-1301 hit him in the shin. FN-2304 jumped back with a ‘hey!’ and Hux growled to keep them both in line.

“Well then,” Hux said, relieved. “We should be fairly safe from any cultists. Lord Vader was notoriously thorough.”

“Corpses are undisturbed,” the muzzled Ren realized. “No predators have set foot in this place.”

“Maybe there’s something worse down below,” RX-3081 wondered.

“If you don’t tell me you’re joking right now I’m going to have to hurt you,” JN-1301 warned as she stood up. “Don’t **DO** that! Not now! Not anymore.”

“He’s not joking,” the pilot Ren warned. “There’s something else here. I can feel it.”

JN-1301 threw up her hands and stormed in a circle. She stopped only once Hux stepped into her arc and growled, teeth bared in warning. He stayed there until she huffed and leaned her head back, baring her throat under her helm. Hux didn’t take it, instead chirping at her submission then stalking away to where RX-3081 was slowly trying to separate himself from the group.

“I don’t want this,” RX-3081 admitted. “I don’t know if this is the Force or a bad feeling or anything anymore.”

Hux slowly circled his Hound, one hand trailing on his armor as he purred. RX-3081 stood with his arms wrapped around himself, relaxing as Hux purred ownership and acceptance and all of those wonderful things that cadre meant. Through it all RX-3081 could hear one word and he held onto that, especially as Hux pulled his helmet off and gently tilted his head back.

‘Mine’.

RX-3081 dropped to his knees willingly, whining at the need to feel something, anything, he wasn’t even sure. Teeth on his neck was one of his greatest nightmares and yet he wanted it, _needed_ it, and then…

Time stopped. Hot breath, wet heat on his neck. Sharp titanium points on his skin. A rumbling purr that vibrated down to his very soul. His hands slid up to grip at armor plates, pulling at the collar of Hux’s breastplate in a fruitless attempt to get beneath it.

A rough tongue laved the skin of his neck as time began to flow again. RX-3081 opened eyes he hadn’t realized were closed. For a moment he saw the alabaster hound with the red crest, its solid green eyes glowing in the dark. That moment ended, though Hux didn’t look much more human like this. The darkness turned his eyes into iridescent green pits. Time away from the _Locutor_ caused his hair to go wild, an unstyled oily red crest that extended under his armor and down his spine. His humanity was a mask he wore, a quality long since evolved away, a trade made in order to survive on whatever fungal nightmare Arkanis really was.

RX-3081 nuzzled Hux’s jaw, sliding his face up Hux’s cheek to his ear then back down to the other side.

Through it all Ren watched. It was telling that the other Stormtroopers felt no fear or confusion toward this animalistic display. The strongest emotions he gathered were interest and jealousy. He wondered if, like Hux’s inhumanity, this also predated the temple on Praxis. No matter, it served its purpose as Ren knew none of the Knights would ask to keep RX-3081 again.

The Stormtrooper was already owned.

*****

The temple’s antechamber ended at a set of open doors. Stairs carved into the stone led down.

Ren gestured for the muzzled Ren to take the lead. The muzzled Ren changed their grip on the long-handled polearm, gripping the weapon near the axehead. They tapped the butt of the weapon on the floor, tapping each step below them before stepping on it. Ren went next, his lightsabre still raised and lit.

They descended forever, steps leading down through the plateau. The occasional glow of kyber from distant walls served as the only lighting they didn’t bring with them. The air grew cold, stale, wet with the inner water of Mestare. Through it all the muzzled Ren tapped their way down the stairs until finally one last tap sounded different.

That tap spread into a swish as the muzzled Ren drew the butt of their poleaxe across the floor they found. The floor sounded smooth, broad, it produced no echo in the distance.

“Lamps,” Hux called.

His Hounds brought their hand lamps up to reveal…

“Pfassking nope,” SK-0331 swore.

“Oh chaos,” TK-1959 whispered.

“Not again,” TT-1098 whined.

“Everyone tell me exactly what you see,” Hux ordered.

One at a time each of his Hounds gave a description of what they saw before them. The only consolation was the fact that they all saw the same thing. Unfortunately that meant it wasn’t an illusion of the Force like Praxis had been, that meant this was likely real.

The steps ended at a landing. The smallish cavern was unadorned, the cavern walls were of rough hewn stone that should have echoed but didn’t. Ancient candles sat melted down to wax piles like stalagmites beneath rusted wrought iron braziers that still dangled stalactites of frozen wax. A single set of double doors were set into one wall, each door covered in writing that didn’t look anything like aurebesh. The doors were flanked by twin statues of forms far too familiar to all of those who’d dared defy Praxis.

“I take it this is familiar?” Ren asked wryly.

“The forms that you See us as,” Hux said deadpanned. “The forms you insist our Shadows hold. The form you believe I’ve always been. There are two statues that look just like that.”

“Ah.”

“At least they’re not painted,” RX-3081 mused.

Hux pulled a datapad from his pack and turned its brightness down to minimum. Even so the bright light blinded him and he hissed, handing the datapad off to whomever would take it. “Get photos of the door and the statues,” he said, murring. “See if we have enough signal to reach the _Fenris_ from here.”

“Yes Sir,” TK-1959 said as he took the datapad.

“If we can get a signal I want you to try to get copies sent to Dr. Otero,” Hux said, one hand over his light-blinded eyes. “If anyone can translate it’ll be him.”

“I’ve got 2 bars of signal,” TK-1959 said. “Enough to send it.”

“Do it.”

TK-1959 tapped out some commands on the datapad, accessing the comm system on the _Fenris_. From here he could use the scrambled channels the First Order preferred and dump the message through the HoloNet.

“You expect him to translate it that quickly?” Ren asked. “I say we open the door and get on with it.”

Hux’s commlink buzzed and he pulled the handheld device from his pack. Even at minimal lighting the hologram was painfully bright and Hux covered his eyes. “I am in the field, Doctor,” Hux growled. “Caves are dark.”

“Of course, of course.” The hologram of Dr. Otero waved a hand dismissively, its pale lab coat not helping with the brightness of the display. “You sent me images of a door covered in Sith?”

“So that’s Sith?” Vicrul Ren asked, looking at the door.

“That’s Sith,” Dr. Otero agreed. “Wait, who are you? Captain, turn the emitter around, I need a better view of--” Dr. Otero went quiet as Hux turned the device in his hand so the camera faced away from him. “Ohhh, you’re working with the Knights of Ren. I’ve studied their order.”

“Have you?” Ren asked, amusement clear in his voice.

“Of course I have. The Knights of Ren have a habit of entering history whenever the Jedi and the Sith destroy each other in a civil war. Even Lord Revan was rumored to keep a Ren among his inner circle of confidants.”

That drew much of the amusement out of Ren’s posture.

“And now with the Jedi reduced to one self-trained savant and the Sith reduced to one barely-trained apprentice, the Knights of Ren have the chance to reshape history as they always have.”

Hux clicked his teeth in shock as he heard the Supreme Leader called a ‘barely-trained apprentice’.

“I suppose we will,” Ren said with growing pride. His Knights behind him all mirrored that pride.

“Now show me this door.”

Hux couldn’t both hold the commlink and see. He clamped his hand down on the first shoulder he felt, letting whomever it was see the pinpoint pupils in his bright green eyes. JN-1301 shuffled forward, drawing Hux with her.

“Wait, wait, statues,” Dr. Otero called. “Oh they’re beautiful. Excellent detail. Run the commlink over the entire statue, let me see it from snout to tail.”

Hux could almost see the statue of the hound before him, dark gray shadows on a black background. He allowed Dr. Otero to scan the details of the hound.

The statue stood on its hind legs, balanced by a tail that added weight to the back end. Its mouth was open in a silent growl, or perhaps a leer or a grin. It had a mane of spines or maybe stylized hair that extended in a long line down its back and halfway down the tail. Its powerful forepaws had dewclaws, rudimentary thumbs that might grant some dexterity if the animal knew how to use it. But the face…

The face was broad, the braincase wide. The jaws weren’t as strong as they looked, sharp teeth built for shredding rather than grabbing. This might be a statue of something sentient…

“It’s a Tuk’ata,” Dr. Otero said. “More commonly called a Sith Hound.”

“What can you tell us about them?” RX-3081 asked.

“The Republic classified them as non-sentient despite the fact that they can speak and understand languages and have been known to use tools. Feh. They were victims of blatant Jedi-imposed speciesism because they’re so often found in Sith tombs and temples. They make excellent temple guards.”

“I figured that one out,” Hux said, deadpanned.

“Oh? How did you know?”

“The temple on Praxis,” FN-2304 said dismissively, as though that temple hadn’t tried to turn them all into these exact creatures. 

“Really…”

Hux couldn’t see Dr. Otero’s face through the bright haze of the hologram but he could hear the man’s voice and he did not like it. It promised pain. It promised meetings. It promised paperwork. It promised a probing the likes of which Dr. Katsuo could only dream of.

“The door, Doctor,” Hux growled.

“Yes, yes, the door. Get me a better view.”

Hux shifted, pointing the commlink at the door. Dr. Otero hemmed and hummed but nothing happened.

“I need better images.”

Hux clicked his teeth and gestured at the door for TK-1959 to take better images and send them to Dr. Otero’s datapad. As these images meandered their way across the HoloNet the hologram of Dr. Otero shifted, holding a datapad as he examined each image in turn.

The doctor continued humming while Ren leaned against the wall and huffed in annoyance. “You could bring him along next time,” he suggested.

“Trust me, this is easier,” Hux warned. “We can always turn the commlink off.”

“Don’t you dare,” Dr. Otero warned. He hummed some more as he expanded pictures to look at exact letters. “Ohhhh…”

The sound was different and Hux recognized that as the sign that a scientist had found something interesting. “What is it?” he asked.

“The cultists of Mestare are locked behind that door,” Dr. Otero said.

“No, they’re dead,” JN-1301 said. “We passed all their dead bodies on the way down. Cut down by--”

“By Vader himself,” Dr. Otero interrupted. “This is Lord Vader’s work.”

Ren’s annoyance faded as he gestured to the door. His mechanic Ren stepped forward to examine the writing.

“It’s written in Sith,” Dr. Otero explained. “Lord Vader was not well trained in the sorcerous arts but he did learn the basics. ‘Thy lives for thy treasures. Tuk’ata be thee, bound to this cavern forevermore. Sing thy task and thy despair.’”

“What does that mean?” TK-1959 asked.

“I’d always wondered if the Tuk’ata were a created race,” Dr. Otero mused. “Do tell me if Vader’s curse worked. Try to take one alive if you can. I’d love to see one up close.”

Hux shivered at the gleeful lust in Dr. Otero’s voice. The cold feeling didn’t leave as he considered everything the scientist had said. These Sith Hounds might be a created race, but created from what? If the translation was correct then were they created from…

...from people…

“Thank you, Doctor, I’ll keep you informed,” Hux said, ending the comm connection before the doctor could answer.

“This is what Praxis tried to do to us,” RX-3081 whispered. “But it didn’t succeed. Right?”

“It explains your shadows,” Ren allowed.

Hux tucked away the commlink, putting it out of his mind. He blinked the bright spots from his eyes as he stepped forward to the door. It was just a door. It was just a door with writing on it. The letters were scratched on by what looked like a burnt bone, sharp charcoal and calcium edges lending a savagery to it all. There was nothing savage about Lord Vader, not the Lord Vader that presented himself to the galaxy at large. But in private…

There had been rumors about Lord Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin. Brendol’s friends still whispered them when they thought no one heard.

He pressed his hands against the door and pushed.

The door opened.

Still and stale cave air assaulted his nostrils. The cavern extended out, broadening into a single large gallery that split into deeper passages that disappeared into pitch black dark too deep even for Hux to see through. This gallery looked familiar, vaguely like the upper galleries of Ilum’s kyber caves. Alcoves held rolled bed mats, a stone circle in the middle held the remains of plasma sticks, pots and bundles that once contained food lay broken and scattered about as though thrown in frustration.

Someone had indeed been trapped in here. Their bones made a skittering sound as the door pushed them aside.

“We leave two people outside,” Hux ordered. “TT-1098, you stay here.” He glanced at Ren, inviting the man to choose one of his own to stay behind.

“Cardo,” Ren said.

The mechanic Ren, Cardo Ren, nodded and moved to stand with TT-1098.

“We’ll knock three times,” Hux promised. “If you hear that it means we can’t open the door from this side.”

“What if we hear something else?” TT-1098 asked.

Cardo hoisted their flamethrower as if to answer. She nodded in response. “Good luck, sir,” she said.

Hux stepped inside. His Hounds and the Knights of Ren followed, letting the door fall closed behind them.

“Lamps,” Hux called.

“Sir,” TK-1959 called. He held his hand lamp shining down at the bones on the floor. He’d seen bones like this before. Some sort of humanoid canid. The pose was ruined by the sweep of the door but he imagined it may have been trying to escape before the transformation--

No. That wasn’t what this was. It couldn’t be.

Hux brushed away the shreds of robe, hissing low under his breath as he paused at each scrape to mime raking his own hands over the fabric like claws. He found what he was looking for when he pulled a femur and ran his fingers over the mangled longbone. He handed the bone to Ren.

“I don’t see details with my hands like you might,” Hux allowed. “Feel the marks on this bone. Teeth? Or claws?”

Ren took the bone and brushed his fingers over the marks. “Teeth,” he agreed. “Teeth like yours. One changed before the other and ate him.”

Hux pulled the skull from the pile. The cranium was marred with similar gouges, though these broke through. The skull was cracked wide open, the left temporal bone all but removed leaving a hole large enough for the hound to reach its snout in and… “It’s a brain-eater,” he said.

“Experience?” SK-0331 drawled.

“Never tried it,” Hux said. “Never thought about it.”

“I hope you never do,” SK-0331 said with sincerity.

Hux left the skull on the floor of the cave. “We’re here to gather kyber,” he said. “As much as we can get away with.”

“We’ve found Tuk’ata sealed in tombs hundreds of years old,” Ren warned. “If the rest were transformed fully there’s a good chance at least one is still alive. Even if they did take to eating each other.”

“Understood,” Hux said.

“Kuruk, take the rear,” Ren ordered. “Ap’lek, guide from the front. I don’t trust this place.”

Kuruk Ren, the pilot, stood behind with the Hounds. Ap’lek Ren, the muzzled Ren, took the front with his long poleaxe again tapping the ground in front of Ren himself. Ren held his lightsabre aloft, his blind eyes staring into the darkness before them as the group all began to file down into the center passage.

Hux ushered his Hounds to follow, nodding as each one drew and readied their weapons as they moved. He waited until he and Kuruk Ren were the only ones left.

“I can See as the Ren Sees,” Kuruk Ren explained. “He and I will see anything that comes for us in the darkness.”

Hux accepted this explanation and allowed Kuruk to take the rearguard.

The passage swallowed them all with an impenetrable darkness. The nightvision of the Hound’s helms couldn’t piece the darkness, all of them forced to listen to the slow tap-swish-tap of Ap’lek Ren’s polearm against the passage floor. Even the glow of Ren’s red lightsabre seemed dampened, a red blade of crystalline light that cast no light of its own.

“I don’t like this,” SK-0331 whispered.

“Nobody likes this,” JN-1301 whispered back.

A growl quieted them, though that quiet didn’t last long.

“Please don’t do that, sir,” RX-3081 pleaded. “We’re all nervous enough already.”

Hux glanced around them all. He couldn’t see much, darkness moving on darkness. But he knew they were being followed. Something stalked them somehow, above, below, behind, in a different passage, he didn’t know where. But he knew they were there. That hadn’t been his growl.

He didn’t say anything.

And then the sound of Ap’lek Ren’s poleaxe changed.

The passage opened into a vast echoing chamber, the sound extending forever around them all. Ren’s lightsabre now flared back to brightness but it didn’t seem to help, the cavern’s size consuming the light as surely as the oppressive darkness of the passage behind them.

“A sea of darkness,” Kuruk whispered.

RX-3081 reached out for the wall. His gloved hand touched stone and that darkness began to fade.

It started as a single mote of light, a tiny flash of blue in the kyber dust of the wall. It extended like a ripple, like a shock wave, spreading over the columns and walls and features of the natural cavern with the carefully carved pathway across the cave floor. Kyber crystals flared to life as the ripple touched them, adding their colors to the hum of light that slowly revealed the great Jedi caverns of Mestare.

Galleries of delicate white crystal dripping with liquid light, pools of water beneath that shimmered with luminescent kyber dust.

A grand shrine of Force-grown crystals coaxed into delicate shapes over hundreds or maybe thousands of years, a shrine dedicated to the Force itself.

Arching pathways over deep pitfalls that glowed all the way down to their bottomless depths.

Balconies above on the cavern walls with the yawning black pits of other passageways.

Kyber nodules studded the walls, jutted from stalagmites, dangled from the ceiling, littered the floor. The kyber of Mestare shimmered, unable to stick to one single color as it caught its own inner light to sparkle like so many opals. It didn’t have the sharp edges of Ilum kyber, instead every stone was smooth and rounded like river rocks tumbled through the Force itself.

Hounds of Knights of Ren all slowly uncurled from their tight formation, all of them slowly spreading out into the cavern. The beauty of this place was entrancing, enticing, and Hux knew it was all too dangerous. He knew they’d been followed even if he didn’t understand how. He glanced at Ren and saw the other man knew as well, could see it in the grim set of his helm and the grip on his lightsabre.

“SK-0331, FN-2304, and FR-2116,” Hux whispered. “Fill your packs. Collect as much kyber as you can carry and let’s get out of here.”

“Why are you whispering?” GR-8758 asked, his voice echoing in the silence.

Hux winced and the cavern itself seemed to answer.

_intrudersss…_

_they ssseek to sssteal…_

_but what isss thisss?_

_look… look at it…_

Something shimmered. It was just a movement out of the corner of the eye, shapes that only moved when one looked away. It made no sense. And yet…

“NOW!” Hux hissed and his Hounds jumped to action. SK-0331 and FN-2304 slung their packs over their shoulders and began tossing glowing rocks into them. FR-2116 considered his weapon for a moment then decided following orders was the more prudent action. GR-8758 stepped next to them all, his sniper rifle held at the ready as he waited for something to attack. Ap’lek Ren and Vicrul Ren joined him, their weapons held in defensive postures.

“Guys?” RX-3081 called. He watched as that odd movement crept closer, converging not on the others but… to him.

He saw nothing when he looked directly at it, at any of it. He caught the hint of shadows and movement when he blinked, familiar shapes perched on stalagmites and curled around columns, creeping across the floor, lazing in galleries, and it terrified him.

Ren glanced at Kuruk Ren, almost imploring the pilot to do something. Kuruk raised their blaster, picked a target, focused, and fired.

Something squealed and the kyber around them all began to shimmer red.

The first shape seemed to unfold from reality. Shadow and smoke, imagined movement, it all coalesced into a shape that slunk on four powerful limbs with a long whip-like tail behind it. Its eyes glowed solid red, its ears were pricked forward with interest, and its long mane and frill of spines rustled as it moved.

The second shape followed. Then another. And another. Four of them.

This was all that remained of the cult of Mestare.

The Tuk’ata opened slavering jaws, saliva dripping from their long teeth, as they discussed what to do in long hissing voices that might once have been near-human.

_look at them… ssso clossse…_

_we can keep them…_

_one of them at leassst…_

_they’re thievvvesss…_

_but we have ssso much… a trade perhapsss…_

_if they want the ssstonesss they can pay for it…_

_yesss… yesss… that one… or maybe that one?_

_no… it mussst be **that** one…_

SK-0331 tried desperately to ignore the hissing voices as he grabbed anything shiny he could get his hands on and shoved it in his pack. Once it was full he hoisted the thing over his shoulders and stood. FR-2116 was next, standing doubled over to better distribute the weight. Finally FN-2304 stood, one hand still on his AR as he and GR-8758 nodded at each other.

The Tuk’ata were occupied, all of their attention focused on the one they seemed to have chosen as their sacrifice. They circled him, slinking around him as they jumped up onto stalagmites and bounded across fallen rocks and lurked along pathways, always too far to touch but far too close to ignore.

They wanted RX-3081.

_to kill or to keep…_

_keep… keep…_

_look at him… it won’t take much… he’ll change on hisss own… let’sss help him along…_

_keep… keep… keep…_

RX-3081 shuddered in fear as the Sith Hounds circled him, humans and near-humans twisted and transformed into these creatures by a Sith curse on the door. Trapped down here for years, possibly decades, unable to leave. The thought filled him with a crippling loneliness that drove him to his knees while the Tuk’ata all hissed around him. He could **hear** the words they didn’t speak, the hissing thoughts kept under breath. ‘He understands, he has to stay, he’ll be safe here, we understand’...

RX-3081 looked up, his entire body pleading for something, anything, he wasn’t sure what.

Hux gestured to the corridor. Ren nodded. The majority of the Knights of Ren charged up the corridor towards the upper gallery, leaving Kuruk Ren and Ap’lek Ren behind. On Hux’s nod the majority of the Hounds left along with, fleeing back to the surface with their spoils of kyber.

Ap’lek and Kuruk both looked to Hux for guidance. Hux’s idea was two-fold. First he was going to try to give the others time to escape. Second, he was going to get his Hound back. He wasn’t leaving RX-3081 behind.

Hux lowered himself to the floor, hands before him as he stretched like a Tooka ready to pounce. He growled, letting his voice rise to a snarl the likes of which these Tuk’ata must understand.

He wasn’t leaving without that which belonged to him.

“What are you doing?!” RX-3081 screamed. “Leave me here! Get yourselves out. They'll let you go. You heard them, they'll let you go!”

“We’re not leaving without you,” Ap’lek Ren said, poleaxe held in a defensive posture. “Your Captain won’t allow it.”

_we agreed… it’sss a fair trade… we agreed…_

_you took the ssstonesss… we keep thisss one… you agreed when you took the ssstonesss…_

Hux snarled again, a wordless challenge.

“Don’t do it,” RX-3081 pleaded. “I’m just a Stormtrooper, I’m expendable. You’re not, you know you’re not! Leave me here and go!”

_there’sss wisssdom in thisss one… heed it… heed it… or you all die…_

Hux launched himself off of the floor like a Tuk’ata himself, charging one of the Sith Hounds. The creature looked surprised for a moment before leaping forward to meet Hux’s charge with glee.

Hux slid the knives from his sleeves in one smooth movement as he slammed bodily into the leaping hound, sending them both to the cavern floor. He felt clawed paws, or were they still hands, scrabbling at his armor as he stabbed both knives into the hound’s chest. It roared in pain, neck arched back. Hux struck hard at that neck, clamping his teeth over the smooth almost amphibious skin. Blood flooded his mouth and he pulled, ripping the neck open.

Blood sprayed his face and neck as Hux looked up at the other three hounds. They each crouched down, ready to pounce.

Kuruk Ren fired, hitting one in the shoulder. It yelped as the blaster bolt sent it skidding into a rock.

Hux didn’t waste time on words, instead reaching up to grab RX-3081 and throw him back to the Knights of Ren. RX-3081 gave a wordless cry before unslinging his sniper rifle.

“Rearguard,” Kuruk whispered. “We hold them back. We can See them. Concentrate on Seeing them and the darkness doesn’t matter.”

“How do I do that?” RX-3081 asked.

“Your eyes will protest,” Kuruk Ren whispered even as Hux backed away from the approaching Tuk’ata and Ap’lek Ren backed into the corridor. “It’s easier in the dark because then your eyes can’t protest anymore. Your mind will know where they are. Like on Praxis when your eyes stopped protesting.”

RX-3081 nodded. He wasn’t about to argue, not when they still had to escape. He and Kuruk stepped apart and Ap’lek began to run.

Hux bolted up the corridor, his knives still stuck in the hound that despite its bitten throat pulled itself to its feet and growled.

Then the Tuk’ata all disappeared.

“Kriff,” RX-3081 swore.

“Let’s go!” Kuruk called, backing quickly into the corridor. RX-3081 followed. “Don’t let them hide from you, you know where they are!” As if to punctuate their words, Kuruk Ren shot twice past RX-3081. Blaster bolts impacted hound-shaped shadows that squealed and fell back.

Darkness engulfed them as Kuruk Ren and RX-3081 climbed the pitch blackness with their rifles at the ready. RX-3081 felt something coming for him though he wasn’t sure how. He fired into the nothingness that followed him, hitting the Tuk’ata that hid there, and he decided not to question it. 

He felt it again, a presence in the darkness. It rushed up the corridor at him and he fired, sending it skittering back. If there were only four of them why did they keep coming?

“They’re maintained by the Shadow itself,” Kuruk Ren realized. “We can’t kill them, we can only survive them.” Another shot, another shadow driven back snarling.

They retreated that way, sensing the Tuk’ata coming for them and firing into the darkness to drive them back. RX-3081 vaguely felt his rifle growing hot under the strain of so much plasma.

The upper gallery wasn’t far now. All they had to do was make it there.

Up ahead he heard the welcoming sound of a fist pounded on a door three times. “We’re almost there,” he called, breaking his own concentration. He didn’t feel it until it was too late and the weight of the Tuk’ata impacted his armor. His rifle went skittering away as claws grabbed at his armor, trying to peel it apart. RX-3081 drew his legs up to kick, slamming his boots into the hound’s chest. It yowled and snarled, it’s jaws trying to find purchase on his helmet. 

The sound of a swoosh then a thunk and it squealed and pulled away. RX-3081 scrambled to his feet and ran for the upper gallery with Ap’lek Ren and their poleaxe dripping in blood.

Kuruk covered the door until they were through and it closed behind them.

Ren counted shadows, picking out all of his Knights of Ren, Hux, and all of the Stormtroopers. Everyone accounted for.

"What is it with things not dying to sniper shots?!" RX-3081 demanded, all but shouting his insult to the void.

“We got what we came for, let’s get out of here,” SK-0331 said, gasping under his heavy pack of kyber crystals.

“Seconded,” JN-1301 said.

Kuruk Ren glanced at Ren. “No,” Ren said. “We’re not following them. We have business on Varnak.” Kuruk hmphed.

“I agree,” Hux said. “Let’s all get out of here.”

The cursed doors stayed closed. Even if they still had hands, the Tuk’ata had no way of opening them from the inside. That had to count for something.

Still, he wanted off this planet. They had what they came for.


	4. Dantooine

Hux’s fingers flew over the control consoles of the _Fenris_. Hyperspace swirled around them while TT-1098 sat back and watched in awe. Hux’s command over the ship’s inner workings left her envious. She could fly the ship, move it from place to place, but she couldn’t do what he did now.

TT-1098 remembered Hux’s words from before they left Mestare. The Knights of Ren left him with information about Dantooine. Hux then briefed them all, detailing the particular dangers of Dantooine. Dangers that none of them had ever faced before.

Dantooine was a planet of the New Republic.

They would all have to act like civilians.

No helms. No armor. No uniforms. No designations. No rank. No weapons.

Hux finished the last few keystrokes and activated the transponder. The shuttle’s transponder activated per New Republic regulations.

“That’ll keep us out of any Republic trouble?” TT-1098 asked.

“It should,” Hux said. “As of right now the _Fenris_ was originally registered to Arkanis Academy. It was impounded by the Republic and resold at auction.” 

An alarm beeped and TT-1098 dropped the shuttle out of hyperspace. Dantooine loomed below them, a brown and green and blue marble in the void. Swirls of white clouds curled around the planet, including a great white storm in the middle of a vast blue sea, Dantooine’s seasonal Summer Eye. The _Fenris_ avoided that storm, instead curling around through smaller clouds to the coordinates Dr. Otero had left. The coordinates that Ren had already scouted.

The unfortunate coordinates of a settlement.

Fat raindrops spattered against the viewport of the _Fenris_ as TT-1098 set it down in the nearly empty spaceport. Outside a man in a bright orange poncho with plasma torches in both hands waved wildly in an old Republic type of semaphore directing them to correct parking and then directions to customs.

Hux took a deep breath and steeled himself for the onslaught ahead. His Hounds weren’t trained for this. So much depended on them. He had TT-1098 flash the running lights of the _Fenris_ in response and headed to the back to face his Hounds. None of them wore armor, though only RX-3081 looked mussed enough for his civilian disguise to work. They all wore standard issue First Order civilian disguises and Hux would be having words with Intelligence after this mission.

“You all know your cover names,” Hux warned.

“Mitaka,” TK-1959 recited.

“Tritt,” FN-2304 said.

“Rex,” RX-3081 sighed.

“Greg,” GR-8758 said.

“Fred,” FR-2116 said.

“Maddie,” TT-1098 exclaimed.

“Jean,” JN-1301 said, much less enthused.

“Trassk,” SK-0331 said, concluding the exchange of names.

“And I’m ‘Armitage’,” Hux agreed. “Just Armitage, no family name. None of us have ranks or designations. We all know our cover stories.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

The shuttle ramp descended and Hux led the way. His purposeful stride faltered as soon as he left the shelter of the shuttle’s nose and stepped out into the rain. He shuddered at the cold water, leaning up into it as he closed his eyes and purred. He murred in frustration as hands grabbed his arms and dragged him out of the rain to the spaceport’s only building.

*****

“So you’re Arkanan.”

Hux sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he said for what felt like the fifth time. He was definitely having Words with the Intelligence division when they got back to Ilum and the First Order. Here he was, stuck in some poorly outfitted government office with his Hounds held in a waiting room while he, the obvious nonhuman, faced ineffective interrogation by a low-level bureaucrat. The man wore no nametag and offered no name as he sat across a blank table made of some sort of duraplast salvage, taking notes on a datapad older than Hux, asking inane questions about who they were, why they were here, and why they flew an Imperial shuttle.

“Your name is Armitage.”

“Yes.”

“And you won’t give me your family name.”

Hux growled. This was where he didn’t have to act. “My mother’s family doesn’t have one.”

“What about your father?”

Hux snarled and slammed his fists into the table, titanium teeth bared. “Because I refuse to take the name of the pfassking Imperial who raped my mother!”

The man’s jaw dropped and he went pale. “I-I’m sorry,” he stammered, making quick notes on his datapad. He got up, opened a door behind him, and shouted ‘let them all go, they’re clear’ down the corridor. Then he straightened his tunic and sat back down.

Hux watched with narrowed eyes, pupils wide as he growled with every breath.

“I’m sure you of all people understand, there are Imperial sympathizers everywhere nowadays. Now I don’t care much about a man’s politics but the New Republic wants us to keep track of any Imperial influence on Dantooine. Given your ship it was an easy mistake to make.”

“You could have checked my transponder,” Hux suggested, hissing in warning.

“Transponders can be hacked. Yours shows some evidence of tampering.”

Hux snorted. “Of course it does,” he said. “It was wiped before I bought the thing. I spiked it myself trying to get the vehicle’s history. I found nothing.”

“That makes sense.” The local stood up, offering a hand for Hux to shake. Hux looked at it and murred, tentatively reaching out to touch the fingers then pulling away.

The local pulled his hand away with an awkward blush. “Sorry,” he muttered. Then he cleared his throat. “In any case, welcome to Dantooine, Mr. Armitage. Enjoy your stay.”

Hux rumbled in thanks and left, putting this entire customs experience behind him. He was having more than just Words with the Intelligence division when they got back.

*****

An entire small town sprawled around the ruins of the Jedi enclave. The ruins were left untouched and abandoned, a bronze plaque detailing legends of Vader’s exploits in the enclave and the hauntings he found there. An open-air market stood with half the stalls closed due to the day’s rain. Pack animals stood tied to posts in a field next to speeders, the animals grazed as though this were a normal occurrence. Farms and homesteads spread out in all directions toward the horizon. Stalls sold vegetables and local produce, salvaged goods, handmade wire jewelry, and knick knacks all marked with the planet’s name. One stall didn’t sell anything, instead it had stacks of damp flimsii pamphlets all held down by clear pale-yellow crystals and a sign promising ‘cave tours’.

Rain pattered down over the group that stood in the shadow of the ruined enclave. Most wore ponchos like they had some sort of sense. One did not and he kept shaking his head and purring as the rain ran down his crest of red hair to seep under his clothes.

Hux knew he stood out. That was a major part of his disguise. He left his inhumanity on display for all to see, unabashedly playing the part of the near-human Arkanan. The Empire’s speciesism had been legendary, it’s humanity-first initiatives still remembered and repeated even now under the ‘tolerant’ New Republic. Hux used that, relying on the idea that no non-human would ever willingly associate with an Imperial to convince any passerby that his Hounds weren’t actually Stormtroopers. They weren’t part of the Imperial Remnant. The First Order was a myth, honest.

That was the excuse he gave before this mission and that was the excuse he’d use again if pressed later. It had nothing to do with the wonderful cold rain that flushed his spots and made him purr, that had the rest of his Hounds huddling and shivering underneath standard issue gray ponchos. 

“I assume we’re going on the tour?” RX-3081 asked.

“We’ll use the tour to scout the area,” TK-1959 agreed. “Observe what security measures they have in place and how to bypass it. Determine what sort of contingencies we need.”

“Of course it’s possible we’ll learn we can walk right in,” FN-2304 reasoned.

“We’ll take the tour,” Hux said. “Everyone, keep your eyes and ears open. We’ll discuss the next step tonight. Remember, we have 200 credits among all of us, including whatever tour fees we’ll have to pay. Let’s go.”

Hux approached the ‘cave tours’ stall with his Hounds behind him. The man standing under the stall’s awning wore a tunic that clearly depicted a stylized set of stalactites and a green lightsabre. A tiny symbol for the Rebel Alliance was embroidered over his left breast. He perked up at seeing unfamiliar faces. Very unfamiliar; Hux figured he was likely the only non-human in the entire settlement.

“Welcome to Dantooine,” he said. “My name’s Lenny and I run the cave tours here! Are you interested in seeing the very Jedi caves where Luke Skywalker found the kyber crystal he used to kill both the Emperor and Darth Vader?”

“Oh, we are!” RX-3081 said, sounding far too excited.

Lenny grinned, looking from face to face expectantly. It was Hux who made a show of smiling indulgently. “How long is the tour?” he asked.

“An hour and a half,” Lenny promised. He glanced down at their feet. “You’re all wearing good boots, that’s a must. We provide hand lamps and the caves are lit…” Lenny trailed off here, pausing to wiggle his eyebrows and leer. “...by kyber.” He grinned and nodded, winking at RX-3081.

“How much?” Hux asked.

Lenny trailed his eyes over the lot of them. “Ten credits each.”

Hux murred thoughtfully as he pretended to contemplate. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a hundred credit chip. “When’s the next tour?” he asked.

“We could go now,” Lenny promised. He started packing up the stall, rolling the rain shields down over the sides of the stall and turning a wood-carved sign over so it read ‘on tour’.

Hux handed over the credit chip. Lenny took it, counting the size of his tour group. Eight people in suspiciously identical brown outfits with gray ponchos plus Hux made for nine. He reached into his pockets for a bent ten credit chip, handing Hux his change.

From there they piled onto a wide-bodied speeder that should only have sat four and had ‘cave tours’ painted onto the side. The ride did not fill Hux with confidence, though he found he didn’t mind curling up on the rear hull with GR-8758 and TK-1959 pressed against him. He only vaguely heard Lenny shouting over the whirr of the speeder’s engines, asking if they were comfortable and trying to shout some basic and heavily truncated history of the area.

The caves at Dantooine were nowhere to be found when the speeder finally came to rest in a speeder lot next to what looked like a small visitor’s center. Lenny went first, turning on all the lights and starting the exhibits.

Hux wasn’t here to gawk at artifacts pulled from what he figured were the cave’s upper galleries. He’d seen the Jedi straw bedrolls and empty pots of rotted rations before. Still he pretended to show interest as did his Hounds who spread out into the visitor’s center. GR-8758 even checked out the fresher units, or maybe he was merely queasy from the speeder ride. Hux would have to insist he get his cochlear implants checked once they returned to the _Locutor_ , he’d always had trouble with the left one.

“What’s this?” TK-1959 asked, pointing to a lift door.

“That’s the lift down to the cave two hundred meters below us,” Lenny promised. “Before we go, however, there’s a presentation you need to see on cave safety.”

Hux allowed Lenny to usher them all into a small projection room. A holoprogram began once they were all in, a patronizing thing meant for lazy core-worlders who’d never set foot on the ground in their lives. It warned them all about cave animals that might carry diseases, about rocks that might trip them if they wandered off the designated path, and not to disturb anyone they might see off the path because these were sacred caves still in use by the Jedi. Every warning was reenacted by locals in the caves, including the Luke Skywalker impersonator waving at a tour group.

After 15 long, long minutes the holoprogram was over.

“Any questions?” Lenny asked.

“Is this really where Luke Skywalker got his lightsabre crystal?” TK-1959 asked.

“It is!” Lenny crowed, his pride obvious. “And all of his apprentices.”

“Does the color of the crystal affect the color of the blade?” RX-3081 asked. “Lord Vader’s was red. Luke Skywalker’s was green, or was it blue?”

“To be honest, I have no idea,” Lenny admitted. “But most of the kyber here on Dantooine is clear pale yellow. The yellow might not be strong enough to change the color of a lightsabre blade. As for Vader’s red blade, I assume evil Jedi like him have to broadcast their evil somehow.” He grinned as though this was an excellent observation.

An uncomfortable silence fell as the Hounds didn’t react exactly as Lenny expected. Lenny’s smile fell and he stepped back. “Okay then,” he said, clearing his throat. “Shall we go underground?”

Lenny passed out hand lamps and led them all to the lift. Hux glanced at RX-3081 and clicked his teeth, glancing at the simple key lock that activated the lift. RX-3081 smiled in response. “What if someone gets stuck below?” RX-3081 asked. “Is there a key to get back up too?”

“Oh no,” Lenny assured him. “If you get lost and we can’t find you, just walk up. You’ll either reach the lift or the Jedi pathway out. There’s no lock on the lift coming up, just going down.”

“That makessssense,” Hux pondered, voice lapsing as he considered the possibilities. A comm and a chronometer, that's all they'd need. Now all that remained was to choose men for the mission. Himself, most likely. RX-3081 definitely. A third...

Lenny unlocked the lift and stepped inside, holding the door open for everyone to pile in. It descended into the ground.

Lenny directed them all to pop their ears as they descended. GR-8758 tapped at a squeal in his left ear before turning it off. He glanced at Hux who nodded acceptance. Hux’s choices for his third had just shrunk.

The lift slowed then stopped, opening into a sparkling cavern. “Lamps,” Lenny called.

Some of them raised their lamps, others did not. Hux did not as he avoided stray beams of lamp-light that might ruin his night eyes. Lenny reached out to the wall. He touched it and a faint yellow glow answered. That glow began to spread, lending its light to the lower gallery of the Dantooine kyber caves.

Lenny began his tour, explaining what history was known about these caves. These were natural caves, left alone for thousands of years after the Jedi abandoned them for Ilum. Only in the past few hundred years had the Jedi returned here, free-thinking Jedi sending their padawans here instead of allowing the pilgrimage to Ilum. That was why Luke Skywalker came here, because these caves were used exclusively by the free-thinkers, the strongest Jedi, those who broke with tradition and the Jedi Council to do what must be done in the waning days of the Republic. If more Jedi had been that strong then perhaps the Clone Wars might never have been necessary.

Hux recognized many of Lenny’s talking points. Most of it was New Republic propaganda. However there were a few points that sounded like they'd been lifted from Dr. Otero’s work. He’d have to ask Dr. Otero exactly who had access to his old research.

The kyber of Dantooine was spiky, long shards of crystal like needles or tall points. They did indeed shine yellow without the fluid color change of Ilum’s crystals, a soft yellow like the glow from a filament lamp. Spikes jutted from the walls and the ceiling, embedded in stalagmites that had grown around the kyber that sat undisturbed for thousands of years. The shimmer further in promised more kyber off of the poured concrete path that Lenny insisted they follow.

The path led down into the lower galleries, past pools where water dripped from stalactites into ponds that shimmered with yellow rings. Old faceless statues of Jedi still guarded deeper passages, long since turned white with quartz grown over the stone figures. The squeak of bats could be heard from roped off lower passages, the smell of bat guano wafting up in the otherwise still damp air. The path bypassed those lower passages, instead curling up and around over natural arches that granted expansive views of the entire lower gallery system.

Finally they came to the end of the tour and a large single spire of kyber that stabbed from floor to ceiling like a crystal pillar. “It’s customary for every visitor to touch this one,” Lenny said proudly before touching it. The kyber shimmered with his handprint before the light faded away. “The Force flows through all living things, or that was what the Jedi believed. Luke Skywalker himself brings his padawans down here to touch this very spire, to measure their connection to the Force.” Lenny paused, as though a collective eye-roll from his tour group was a part of the speech. “It’s true! A friend of mine was down here leading a tour when Luke Skywalker himself came here with a kid. Human. Pale, black hair, gangly thing. Said the spire lit up like a pillar of fire when the kid touched it. Ever since then we have every guest touch it.”

“Measuring our connection to the Force?” Hux asked, keeping his tone light.

“It’s just a fun little thing,” Lenny assured him. “I’ve never seen anyone leave more than a big handprint.” He gestured to the spire, encouraging his guests to touch it.

TT-1098 shrugged and went first, touching it. Her handprint shimmered bright, spreading out to three times the size of her hand, then faded away.

“That’s it!” Lenny called. “That was bright, you must be really strong with the Force. Are you a pilot?”

“How did you know?” TT-1098 demanded.

Lenny held up his hands and smiled as though it was just a lucky guess. “The pilots always go first,” he muttered to Hux.

Hux made a noncommittal noise and glanced at the spire. He clicked his teeth, granting permission.

RX-3081 hung back as his squad all left glowing handprints that shimmered then faded away. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Even Hux laid a hand on the spire, leaving a handprint that shimmered and then faded like everyone else's. 

By the time they returned to the surface RX-3081 still didn’t want to know.

*****

That night Hux, RX-3081, and TT-1098 armored up and took a speeder from a quiet farmstead, driving it up to the cavern’s visitor’s center. Hux spiked the security system, consisting of little more than a few token cameras and a single maglock on an inner door. RX-3081 picked the manual lock on the lift, willing it to open. And then they were down, free to collect three field packs of Dantooine yellow kyber.

There were no cameras down here, no technology to log their presence. Only impotent statues and the kyber itself to witness their theft.

Then they began to walk up. The giant spire sat off to one side near the lift.

“You should,” TT-1098 said.

RX-3081 just looked at it.

“You don’t want to believe the Knights of Ren,” Hux predicted. “You want to be normal. If you don’t quantify it, then there’s no way to prove it. This changes all that.”

“You’ll know,” TT-1098 agreed. “Not knowing is the worst. If you don’t know you’ll always wonder. It’ll gnaw at you.”

“How much of your skill is you and how much is the Force?” Hux pondered. “Does it even matter?”

RX-3081 pulled off one glove, freeing his hand from its duraplast prison.

“If nothing happens, you’ll know,” Hux purred. “That means it’s all you. Everything is just you.”

“But if something does happen...” RX-3081 whispered, reaching out toward the spire. He didn’t finish his own thought. He didn’t like how the spire glowed in anticipation even though he wasn’t even touching it yet.

“Then we deal with it,” Hux said. “I don’t leave talents untrained. If it doesss…”

“We’ll find a way to teach you,” TT-1098 promised.

RX-3081 laid his hand against the kyber spire and it _hummed_ , light spreading up and down like ink in water, swirls of light that danced and twisted and curled like joyful serpents. He pulled his hand away and those swirls kept flickering, slowly fading away as they climbed halfway to the ceiling and down into the floor. He pulled his glove back on, staring straight at the crystal like it had betrayed him.

The rumble of Hux’s purr only helped a little bit.

*****

The speeder ride back to the settlement was made in silence. RX-3081 felt cold and it wasn’t just the mists that made him shiver. There was no denying it now. 

He was Force-sensitive. It wasn’t luck that saved them on Mestare. It wasn’t Kuruk Ren’s skill with the blaster that saved them. It wasn’t any other excuse he might try to think of. He’d been using the Force.

He was no better than a Jedi.

They left the speeder where they found it, collecting their field packs and walking back to the space port. Night gradually faded into the beginnings of dawn as they reached the _Fenris_ , stars winking out above them while Dantooine’s sun slowly approached the horizon.

RX-3081 ignored the words and questions and comments of his squad. He barely heard them, just a buzz of noise that had the cadence of words. Was this what it was like to be a Jedi? To be something so different from everyone around him that, what? Where was he even going with this? He wasn’t sure, instead curling up in a bunk where he didn’t have to hear them.

The shuttle rumbled and shifted as the inertial dampeners kicked in. Soon he felt the lurch of hyperspace as they left Dantooine behind.

*****

Hux turned off the transponder, bringing the _Fenris_ back to silent running. He set the program to download to his datapad to work on later, just in case he needed to spoof a legitimate transponder again. He left TT-1098 in the cockpit, trusting her to get them all safely to Jedha without any New Republic interference.

Their kyber hauls were kept separate, two individual piles of field packs stuffed full of kyber crystals for his scientists to analyze. Three field packs remained empty; after scouting the kyber mines at Jedha he’d send SK-0331, TK-1959, and GR-8758 out into those mines to acquire the crystals they needed. The Knights of Ren assured him Jedha was not going to be a problem. Some large spiders had begun moving into the kyber mines but his Hounds could use the target practice.

He looked around the shuttle’s hold. His Hounds took the opportunity to relax after the last mission. Black armor helms and plates lay around chaotically and Hux could smell which plate belonged to whom. FR-2116 snacked on a ration bar, gnawing on the pale edge instead of simply eating it. GR-8758 sat with a wire stuck in his left ear, wincing as he wiggled the wire to try and get his implant to stop squealing. FN-2304 napped, using TK-1959’s legs as a pillow. TK-1959 gave Hux a pleading look, as though he wasn’t sure if this was acceptable or not. JN-1301 cleaned her E-11. SK-0331 watched the door to one of the communal bunk rooms with distinct worry on his face.

Hux took the hint and opened that door.

RX-3081 lay alone on a bunk. He still wore all his armor, plates creaking under his weight as he breathed. His helm was off, held in front of his chest in a manner Hux recognized from the cadre. It was the same position RX-3081 used to lay in when he gained access to the cadre’s stuffed animal.

“I’m not really human, am I?” RX-3081 asked.

Hux snorted. “Am I?” he countered.

RX-3081 sighed and curled closer around his helm. Hux considered the bunk before removing his breastplate and pauldrons. Once his chest was free he climbed onto the bunk, shoving close to his Hound.

RX-3081 shifted in confusion, uncurling from around his helm as he felt Hux press against his back. He looked back to see Hux curled against him. “Why?” RX-3081 asked.

“This changes nothing about you,” Hux said. “You are exactly the same person you were before. Knowing more about yourself doesn’t change that.”

“How do you know? What happens when people find out? I’ll be…” RX-3081 trailed off, his thoughts dwelling on old lessons about Jedi. About children kidnapped from loving families, about being taken from everything he knew to rebuild again, about people relying on him and letting them all down when they realized he wasn’t as strong as they thought he was.

“Why do they have to find out?” Hux pondered.

RX-3081 uncurled and rolled over to look his captain in the eyes.

“Why would I give you up now?” Hux purred. “You’re mine. You’ve been mine. That isn’t going to change.”

“But the Supreme Leader…”

“Doesn’t have to know.”

RX-3081 gaped openly at his captain. They weren’t going to tell the Supreme Leader about this? Nobody would know? Only…

Hux laid back down, pressing so close he nearly burrowed beneath his Hound as he began to purr. The Supreme Leader didn’t need to know. The First Order military didn’t need to know. His father didn’t need to know. There was one person he might trust with this information, if only because he knew Dr. Otero didn’t trust anyone else either.

No one had to know.


	5. Jedha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grossness warning  
> The Force totally works this way. Yoda said it's okay don't bother him about it.

The _Fenris_ dropped out of hyperspace into the NaJedha system.

NaJedha orbited a red dwarf star, small and cool and chaotically active. Flares lashed NaJedha, the magnetic field glowing bright and dangerous. It was a miracle the Rebellion could have spent any appreciable time here with the magnetic storms, the bright aurorae denoting the star’s radiation, and especially the sickly pink oceans full of sulfur bacteria.

They ignored NaJedha, instead turning toward the superterra’s smaller companion world.

There were arguments in scholarly circles over whether Jedha was considered a moon of NaJedha or whether the system was in fact a double planet. Both sides of that argument made good points and now that the holy city on Jedha was destroyed there might be hope of settling the argument properly, without emotional attachment.

Jedha was four times smaller than NaJedha but its orbit was close enough to its larger companion that their magnetic fields were known to cross in vast radiation belts and chaotic magnetic storms.

The Death Star test did not help matters.

The crater where the holy city once stood stretched thousands of kilometers across, forming a basin that gouged through nearly a quarter Jedha's surface to make it look like a facsimile of the Death Star itself. Crustal peeling exposed Jedha’s mantle, burning a hole into the asthenosphere. Exposed mantle with the heat of the initial explosion rendered Jedha uninhabitable. The atmosphere was still hot, though the Knights of Ren were insistent this became less of a problem once inside the mines.

Magnetic storms rumbled beneath the _Fenris_ as Hux chose a spot to land, pointed it out to TT-1098, and turned off the flight computers. The shuttle began to glide down, running without computer support as it dropped into those storms and lightning arched off of the wings. TT-1098 held her breath as she flew manually, hands on the controls and sweat rolling down her brow as she wordlessly brought the shuttle below the level of the worst of the storms toward the coordinates Hux had indicated.

Hux turned the nav computer back on, leaving the hyperdrive computer off and ignoring the alarms as the wings folded up and the shuttle settled with less grace than normal on the plateau.

Now that they were down TT-1098 had the chance to get angry. “Why did you do that?!” she demanded.

“The EMP pollution in the atmosphere would fry our systems,” Hux explained. “We’re grounded now.”

“And you’re going to do that on the way up then?” She wanted to find fault with her captain for making her fly without the computer but his explanation was so calm, so matter-of-fact, that she found there was nothing rational she could do to oppose him.

“It’s easy to fly up without a computer,” Hux said with a shrug. “Just fly up.”

TT-1098 grumbled. She should feel flattered that he trusted her to make a difficult landing like this manually, especially after Praxis. Still, he should have warned her.

Hux trailed a hand along a pauldron of her armor before getting up and heading to the back where everyone else waited for their mission to begin. TT-1098 cut the ship’s systems to protect them from stray electrical discharges, pulled on her helmet, and joined them.

“Our goal lies in the mines beneath us,” Hux began. “The Knights of Ren mentioned giant spiders in these mines. I don’t have to remind you that we know how to deal with giant spiders. These aren’t bolstered by any ancient Sith temples, they should die to blaster fire without problem. If they don’t, I remind you all that you carry knives for a reason.

“Barring the spiders, our biggest problem should be the atmosphere. Jedha was decimated over two decades ago. The atmosphere is still disrupted by the weapons test and will still be hot. Our armor should protect us long enough to descend into the mines where the air is expected to be more conducive to life.

“TK-1959, SK-0331, and GR-8758. The three of you will collect as many kyber crystals as you can carry. The rest of us will provide cover against any local fauna. Any questions?”

“Does anybody still live here?” RX-3081 asked.

“Not officially,” Hux allowed. “Life is still possible beneath the surface. There may be squatters who managed to find caves before the surface burned. I doubt we’ll have to worry about anyone, I expect the spiders already took care of them for us. Any other questions?”

“You’re not going to make us eat these spiders, are you?” SK-0331 asked.

Hux smirked. “I haven’t forced you to eat anything yet,” he warned. “It’s been your choice every time.”

SK-0331 did not like that answer and it showed on his face as he pulled his helmet on. Every other Hound pulled their helm on as well while Hux pulled on his own.

The hatch lowered and Hux scowled behind his helm. They really needed to invest in a craft that had a proper airlock, something to keep hostile conditions outside where they belonged. Instead 85 degree centigrade air blew into the shuttle’s main hold to slowly bake everything not locked away in the cargo holds below.

But first, the entrance to the mine opened like a maw of darkness.

They followed that maw deep into the ground. The temperature dropped as they descended, approaching something almost livable. But the darkness stayed total, so dark even Hux had to pull his hand lamp.

They came to a lower level, a main cavern branching off into three separate tunnels. RX-3081 pressed his hand against the stone wall but nothing happened. He took off his glove then tried it again, but still nothing happened. He pulled the glove back on. “You don’t think the mine was tapped out?” he asked.

“It shouldn’t be,” Hux admitted. “But it’s possible.”

“At least we haven’t run into any spiders,” SK-0331 said.

“Don’t jinx it,” TT-1098 warned. “Now if we walk into an ambush it’s your fault.”

“Or into a web sheet,” TK-1959 muttered. “None of us can see a thing without our helms.”

“We should search some of the lower levels,” Hux ordered. “There might still be crystals lower down.” He looked at the three tunnels leading into darkness. One way was as good as another. Each tunnel seemed just as cold and dark and still as the others. He glanced at RX-3081.

“What?” RX-3081 asked.

Hux pulled RX-3081 before the three tunnels. “Choose,” he ordered.

RX-3081 scowled under his helm. Hux wanted him to use the Force to choose the right path. He raised a hand, counting off each path as he muttered ‘eenie meenie miney--’ and was promptly slapped upside the head.

Hux growled, though the sound didn’t translate through the voice modulator of the helm that Hux wore. It sounded like an electronic hum, a static noise that meant nothing. RX-3081 sighed. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do or what he was sensing for. ‘Your mind will know where they are’, Kuruk had said. But Kuruk hadn’t said how to access that portion of his mind at will.

“You’re trying too hard,” TT-1098 offered. “Stop thinking about it.”

“How do you know?” RX-3081 demanded.

“I watch,” TT-1098 said defensively. “It’s like anything worth doing. If you try too hard you can’t do it. You start second-guessing yourself. You need to make your mind shut up first. Then you can focus.”

RX-3081 gritted his teeth and huffed, fogging the lenses of his own helm. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting his shoulders relax. He could feel the lower gravity of this world, 15% less than space standard. He could feel pressure waves like ripples in a pond, the aftershocks of something huge that… oh… oh!

“Feel something?” Hux asked.

“Memories of the Death Star test,” RX-3081 said, his voice betraying his wonder even through the modulator. “That’s really cool.”

“That’s great, anything about where we’re supposed to go?” SK-0331 snapped.

RX-3081 scowled before trying again, letting his mind fall quiet. He could feel something… He raised a hand, pointing to the rightmost tunnel.

“All right,” Hux allowed. Any choice was as good as another and they had the time to check every tunnel if need be. He took a piton and pounded it into the wall next to the tunnel leading up. He pulled a plasma stick from his own field pack and snapped it, shook it to mix the chemicals so they would fluoresce, then tied it to the piton. “Let’s go.”

The tunnel continued down in switchbacks. Each switchback ended in a level platform and a tunnel with iron tracks leading into darkness. A flash from a hand lamp revealed an identification plaque at each platform giving the level a number, a depth, a schedule, a general map, and the number of workers who should be on each active shift. SK-0331 and GR-8758 shone their lamps down the tunnels at each level, finding only the faint reflection of dusty tracks and the ruined remains of destroyed droids. Nothing moved, nothing changed, nothing glowed. Perhaps Jedha had been mined out.

Hux allowed RX-3081 to take the lead, allowed RX-3081 to ignore every level as he continued following some strange feeling leading him down. He continued that descent until he stopped on the platform before level 27. 

“This way?” Hux asked.

RX-3081 looked into the darkness of level 27. Something here tugged at him and it was giving him a headache, a pressure on the left side of his head right behind the eye. That struck him as important somehow but he didn’t know why. He wasn’t even sure he’d heard Hux speak or if it had come from inside his head where that pressure sprang. He stepped into the darkness, entering the level.

Hux nodded and his Hounds followed, hand lamps and weapons raised.

RX-3081 followed the main corridor of level 27, bypassing fallen droids and wrecked mining equipment. Lights from behind him lingered on blank droid faces and the occasional desiccated corpse grinning its rictus grin. The track curved down one tunnel and he followed another, listening to something he wasn’t sure if he heard or not.

The tunnel opened into a blank room that rose into the levels above. Hand lamps pointed up and down. The ceiling arched three levels above them. Tunnels black against black marked where the levels above met up with the empty space. Rings of catwalks surrounded the room on those levels, providing space so one might look down to the middle. A raised stage in the middle of the room turned everything into an inverted amphitheatre. Speeches, plays, shows, perhaps more could dance across this stage while the workers in the mine all watched from above.

But the stage wasn’t empty.

At first it looked like yet another ruined droid. Then it moved, lamp light reflecting from the multitude of eyes that stared unblinking at the Hounds in armor as black as its own.

Hux and GR-8758 raised their sniper rifles and fired at the thing.

The flash of plasma lit the theatre like the echo of stage lights and the thing stopped moving.

“Well,” SK-0331 said.

“Why does the Force make giant spiders?” TK-1959 lamented as he shone his hand lamp over the bulk of the thing. It was a large spider, as large as the spider queen of Praxis. But while she had been fierce and mobile with long strong legs, this one was fat and flabby and bloated. Its legs were short and stubby, unable to lift its own massive abdomen. Worse, the abdomen didn’t look like an exoskeleton anymore, instead it was soft and pliant, easily ruptured by the rifle fire that rendered the spider inert.

“At least something in this galaxy still dies to sniper fire,” TT-1098 drawled.

“It looks… diseased,” FN-2304 realized. “We should leave it alone.”

“Not diseased,” FR-2116 corrected. “It’s mutated. What’s down here that can mutate things?”

“Who knows what happens in these mines,” JN-1301 said. “There’s chemicals and explosives and whatever the planet belches up and kyber…”

RX-3081 approached the stage and its arachnoid occupant. It was gigantic, almost 3 meters in height from the base of its belly to the arch of its back. It might once have been spherical, though compressed fat under its own weight. It’s comparatively tiny legs were only half a meter long, implying this spider had once been smaller than a man but had since swollen to terrific size. The nightvision of his helm gave him glimpses of horrible things, of the spider trapped and bloating here, unable to move from this spot for so long it had begun to merge and meld with the stone itself. He pulled the knife from his thigh sheath and stabbed it to the hilt into the spider’s disturbingly soft flank.

His HUD informed him there was a smell and it was unpleasant.

He reached into the spider’s abdomen while Hounds made noises of disgust and horror behind him, while Hux decided this wasn’t happening and slung his rifle over his shoulder in preparation to leave. He reached in further, his whole arms sinking into the soft and squishy corpse as he groped and grabbed for…

...for what? He wasn’t even sure, all he knew was it was here.

He pulled handfuls of squishy pale flesh out of the bloated abdomen but what he sought was out of reach.

“Don’t do it!” GR-8758 called.

RX-3081 did it, reaching back in. He grabbed at the organs inside and pulled, climbing into the spider’s abdomen.

“I will make you lick that armor clean,” Hux warned.

RX-3081 heard Hux’s threat over his helm’s internal radio and dismissed it. Soft and slimy flesh pressed against him from all sides, trying to smother him in its grip. The internal air supply of his armor gave him time as he reached out with both hands, feeling around to find what he came for.

Yes. That.

He found something large, solid, he couldn’t feel handholds but he wrapped his arms around it and started to wiggle back out the way he came.

He pulled himself out, collapsing to the stone stage in a clatter of armor, a gush of fluids, and the soft thump of disrupted organs. Only then did the headache ease and he realized what he’d done…

RX-3081 tensed up and desperately swallowed his own bile. He had just… crawled into the corpse of a giant spider… and he had no idea why. He hadn’t done anything this dumb since Praxis. Or before that with the droids. He didn’t even remember the thing with the droids. But this was worse because he could hear the rest of his squad yelling at him over his helm’s internal radio and Hux had that low hum that meant he was growling beneath the voice modulator.

He expected the hands that grabbed him by the breastplate and slammed him into the floor. He expected to look up at the blank black helm of his captain. He expected--

He did not expect this. A soft glow enveloped the theatre, shining up from the bulbous organs he’d dragged out of the spider. FN-2304 flicked the slime from his own blade before sheathing it on his thigh and picking up a sample of what the spider had been eating.

It seemed the spider had somehow dragged itself around the mine eating every kyber crystal it could find before collapsing on this stage to slowly mutate for nobody knew how long into its current bloated state.

RX-3081 felt Hux let him go. But he still laid there on the stage, oblivious to the fluids seeping around him. He hadn’t known, had he? He couldn’t have known. And yet...

“How?” Hux demanded.

RX-3081 rolled over then sat up. He wiped at the slime covering his breastplate and gauntlets but only succeeded at spreading it. “You told me to choose,” he mumbled.

Those words grew icy in Hux’s belly as he thought about it, as Hux realized what must have happened. He'd allowed, all but ordered, RX-3081 to open himself to the Force, to pick which direction they should take. But the Force hadn’t let go. It led them here, all the way to their target, driving RX-3081 to crawl inside the belly of a dead spider.

Hux let out the breath he was holding, dropping to the stage in a slow collapse as he sat next to RX-3081. He didn’t notice the spider’s fluids either, not anymore. “The Force drew you here,” Hux realized.

RX-3081 didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“I’ll get you trained,” Hux promised. “Somehow.”

Around them GR-8758, TK-1959, and JN-1301 scowled and tried to wipe the slime off of kyber as they stuffed their packs full. They had what they came for. They had more than what they came for.

*****

Once they got back to the _Fenris_ Hux didn’t make anyone lick their armor clean. RX-3081 was shoved into the sonic with his armor on and somehow it ended up even more scuffed than before. Hux gave up questioning it, allowing his Hounds to take their turns in the fresher as they flew back to Ilum.

What started as a mission to gather kyber had morphed into something else entirely. Now he had a Force-sensitive Hound who had an unfortunate habit of losing himself in ways that none of them could recognize until he’d done something ridiculous. The Knights of Ren had offered to take RX-3081 in and Hux hadn’t let them. Now he was forced to find another way to bring RX-3081’s Force-sensitivity under control.

This was not the first time RX-3081 had lost himself like that. Hux remembered the droid incident with distinct clarity even if RX-3081 didn’t. Hux couldn’t risk RX-3081 losing time or losing himself in a critical moment again regardless of how useful that lost time turned out to be.

He didn’t trust the Supreme Leader not to keep RX-3081 for himself. He didn’t trust the Knights of Ren not to keep RX-3081 for themselves. That left him with precious few options.

But there was one option he hadn’t yet discounted.

Dr. Otero had known Vader’s work by sight and Hux wanted to know how.

*****

The _Fenris_ bypassed the _Locutor_ entirely, descending past the fleet and the shipyards under construction over Ilum to the planet itself. They landed unannounced on an empty tarmac, Stormtroopers running to the shuttle to meet or perhaps to detain them. Those Stormtroopers paused at the sight of shining black armor, hurriedly standing at attention as the fully armored Hound Captain began shouting orders.

As quickly as it began it ended, leaving Stormtroopers standing in front of an empty shuttle with no idea what had just happened and orders not to enter.

Captain Armitage Hux led his Hounds deep into the main complex on Ilum. He and RX-3081 carried three laden packs of kyber, one pack of each type kept carefully separated to prevent them from mixing properties. Stormtrooper guards tried to stop them, to delay them, to greet them, Hux didn’t care which. Those Stormtroopers were all relieved of duty and sent back to the barracks, scared off with a snarl and the press of black armor.

As they approached their destination the number of Hounds slowly decreased. Hux left his Hounds in the corridor to replace the Stormtrooper guards, slowly but surely conquering this section of the Ilum complex.

By the time he reached his destination there were two Hounds left. Hux ordered TK-1959 to take the door and dragged RX-3081 inside.

Alone.

It was a conference room. Kyber dust shimmered where samples of Ilum were usually kept but had been put away. Cracks in the walls detailed previous experiments, earthquake damage from the comet impacts. A blank space in the wall betrayed where a transparasteel control panel once stood before it shattered under the strain of the earthquakes. Instead a pane of duraplast whiteboard had been hung on one wall, it was covered in symbols and numbers denoting a previous attempt to solve equations of power transference.

Hux pointed to corners of the room. He and RX-3081 placed their packs as far apart as physically possible in the conference room, away from all the dust on the table. Then they waited.

They didn’t have to wait long.

Dr. Bescom came first, his lab coat shining orange. He squealed and reached for one pack, stopped only as Hux removed his black helm and snarled and snapped with teeth bared. Dr. Otero came next, his eyes and grin widening as he took a seat at the table and patiently observed the scene around him. Dr. Pietre came next, not looking up from her datapad as she waded hip-deep in a tricky bit of math. 

These were the three scientists Hux had working on Ilum. Later he would require only one of them but for now three would do.

Hux pointed at Dr. Bescom. “You’re still contaminated,” he warned.

“You got them then?” Dr. Otero asked.

Hux sauntered to one corner and pulled a crystal from the bag, a yellow spindle. “Dantooine,” he said. “The caves have been turned into a tourist trap. Locals insist Skywalker’s kyber is still sourced from Dantooine, same as his apprentices.” He put it back.

“That’s not a problem,” Dr. Otero mused. “If it’s become a tourist destination I expect the local populace will work to prevent disruption of the caves themselves. It should help to keep the kyber pure.”

Hux walked to the next corner and pulled a smooth round stone, pure and clear. “Mestare,” he said. “Lord Vader sealed the living remnants of the Mestare cult into the kyber caves themselves. The cultists were transformed into tuk’ata. They proved immune to weapon damage and are physically incapable of leaving the cave.” He put that one back as well.

“Beautiful,” Dr. Otero purred. “They must draw life and sustenance from the kyber itself.”

RX-3081 shifted uncomfortably, his gaze falling to the floor.

Hux came to the third corner. He reached into the bag, pulling a milky-pale diamond-shaped crystal still coated in a veneer of slime. “Jedha,” he said. “All of the kyber in this mine had been eaten by a giant spider that then began to merge with the stone of the mine. These were pulled from the spider’s corpse.” He had to peel the kyber from his sticky glove then tried to flick the spider’s slime from his glove. When that didn't work he sniffed it, considering, then licked it even as RX-3081 shuddered in disgust.

Dr. Otero made a sound that might be a squeal if he were a younger man. “It’s affected a living animal,” he crowed. “It’s been affected in turn! Oh this is a perfect find! And you have so much!”

Hux gestured to the three sample bags. “We collected three packs of each type,” he said. “This is just the first batch. My Hounds can move it to separate secure labs as soon as we’re done here.”

“I’m sure Scott has grad students who can do the testing,” Dr. Pietre said dismissively, waving a hand at Dr. Bescom. “Need to keep him away from the samples. He’ll contaminate them.”

Dr. Bescom’s coat faded to pale purple. “I will not,” he snapped. Then he looked down at himself and realized he was rather bright. “I have assistants,” he allowed as his coat shifted to deep blue. “Can I get grad students? There’s got to be disgruntled grad students in the New Republic itching for the chance at interesting research.”

“Applied historians,” Dr. Otero suggested.

“How do you apply history?” Dr. Pietre asked.

“By repeating it.”

“Dr. Bescom, get your labs set up,” Hux ordered. “I’ll need a list of supplies and personnel that you require.” Then he pointed to Dr. Pietre. “You and I will discuss your findings later.” Then finally he came to Dr. Otero. “Daniel, I need to talk to you in private. Everyone else, dismissed.”

Dr. Pietre wandered out with her attention back on the datapad. She hummed as she passed by TK-1959 standing guard outside and meandered down the hall. Dr. Bescom paused to gaze at one of the packs with greedy eyes, fingers wiggling as he contemplated snatching a new crystal to play with, before sighing and leaving with a look that denoted his boundless self-control. That left Dr. Otero alone with RX-3081.

RX-3081 took off his helm and laid it on the table.

“You recognized Lord Vader’s work on Mestare,” Hux mused. “How?”

“You must understand, Captain, I began studying the Jedi before Order 66 ruined them,” Dr. Otero warned. “Their archivists used Force nulls in their more tedious works. The Empire rescued me from glorified clerkdom and allowed me to continue my education. I had the opportunity to learn things.”

“Such as?” Hux asked. He leaned against the wall, his arms crossing over his breastplate as he kept his expression carefully neutral.

Dr. Otero mirrored the position, leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed. His expression betrayed only a hint of knowing smirk. “Lord Vader did not trust his master,” he revealed. “Master Sidious planned to live forever and enlisted me to aid him in his research into immortality. Lord Vader worried this meant he would never learn the secrets of the Sith from his master. He felt that after all he'd sacrificed he deserved those secrets. I agreed.”

“You taught him,” RX-3081 realized. “You taught Lord Vader. That’s how you recognized his work.”

Dr. Otero’s smirk grew to a true smile. “I did.” That smile grew predatory. “I taught Lord Vader everything that Master Sidious allowed me to learn, and everything he didn't know I'd deduced. Tell me, what did you really see on Mestare?”

Hux cocked his head, considering. He understood his scientists, he took great pride in that. But he wasn’t sure he trusted them. He made a decision. “There were four tuk’ata in the caves,” he admitted, offering nothing else.

“And?” Dr. Otero demanded.

“They faded in and out of visibility,” RX-3081 said. “They were difficult to see even when they allowed themselves to be seen. At their most visible they were shapes, shadows, stone and darkness made solid with glowing red eyes. The captain tore out the throat of one, the rest all took blaster shots. But they didn’t stop, they kept coming. I had to…” He glanced at Hux but his Captain’s expression offered no guidance, no comfort. RX-3081 blushed. “I could feel them coming for us, even as they disappeared. A Knight of Ren and myself had to keep shooting them as we fled and they kept coming. The Knight said they must be maintained by the Force itself.”

“You could feel them…”

“We believe RX-3081 is Force-sensitive,” Hux allowed.

The look of greedy want in Dr. Otero’s eyes matched the same look Dr. Bescom had given the kyber samples. 

“Snoke doesn’t know,” Hux added. “Nor will he.”

Want changed with a shudder, shifting from wanton desire into something more like hopeful gratitude. Dr. Otero glanced from the small unsure look of embarrassment on RX-3081’s face to the carefully neutral expression of Captain Hux then back. “What can he do?”

“FN-2304 says it explains how I shoot,” RX-3081 admitted. “Ren showed me I can see without my eyes. I… I can find things…” He looked down, clearly uncomfortable.

Dr. Otero pulled himself away from the wall and approached with the same delicacy he might show a terrified animal. RX-3081 didn’t shy away, only wincing as the man approached close enough to run a finger along his scuffed armor.

“On Jedha,” Hux explained. “I ordered RX-3081 to pick a direction from a branching path. He chose a direction, he followed it, he found the stone-melded spider, and when we’d killed it he opened the abdomen to climb inside. I believe he lost his senses the moment he chose a direction and didn’t regain them until he sat drenched in the spider’s insides with its belly full of kyber in his hands.”

“Oh dearest,” Dr. Otero crooned, one hand rising to RX-3081’s face. The Hound didn’t know to protest as that hand slid over his cheek and then around the back of his neck, not when faced with such empathy. “We can’t have that. Not in the field. It’s not safe to give yourself to the Light like that. The Force will make you do terrible things if you let it. We have to teach you how to control it.”

“Can you?” RX-3081 asked. Even he was surprised at how small and hopeful his own voice sounded.

“I will do everything I can to teach you the ways of darkness,” Dr. Otero promised. “But I’m not Force-sensitive. I can only provide formulae and theory. Like Lord Vader you'll have to teach yourself how to apply it. Oh, there’s so much you’ll have to learn on your own. It’ll be hard, I know, but you’re not alone anymore.”

RX-3081 bowed forward, laying his head on Dr. Otero’s thin shoulder while the small old man held him like a grandfather hugging his grown grandson. RX-3081 sighed with a shudder. “I feel alone,” he admitted.

“You have the Knights of Ren. I’m sure you have your squad and your captain. I’m here, too. I’ll help you. You’ll never have to be alone again. I promise.”

Hux watched from where he leaned against the wall as Dr. Otero crooned terrible promises into the ear of his Hound. He still wasn’t sure he trusted Dr. Otero with this but he knew he trusted the Supreme Leader even less.

This was the lesser of two evils, but a necessary evil all the same. Hux trusted the Force least of all and RX-3081 needed to learn to control it before something else went wrong.


End file.
